Fearless Hyena Part II [龍騰虎躍] (1983)
AKA Superfighter 2
Starring Jackie Chan, Austin Wai Tin-Chi, Yen Shi-Kwan, Kwan Yung-Moon, James Tin Jun, Chan Wai-Lau, Hon Gwok-Choi, Dean Shek Tin, Ma Cheung, Peng Kong, Wong Chi-Sang, Pearl Lin Yin-Zhu
Directed by Chan Chuen
Expectations: Pretty much none.
There’s no doubt that the circumstances under which Fearless Hyena II was made are exploitative, but who said exploitation wasn’t fun? Sure, it re-uses scenes from Spiritual Kung Fu and The Fearless Hyena, it has Jackie body doubles, and it has a plot that jumps around in order to make sure that Jackie “I Just Left Lo Wei’s Company to make Good Movies” Chan doesn’t need to be in every scene. It has all of these “problems” and more. But in terms of the bad movies that Jackie made with Lo Wei, Fearless Hyena II is surprisingly one of more entertaining ones. With things like jungle spike traps and two-character team-up attacks, I couldn’t help but enjoy myself.
The story is surprisingly deep, original and heartfelt your standard kung fu movie plot: The Heaven and Earth Devils, two dudes with evil beards and hairdos, are attempting to eradicate the Ching family’s 6-8 Magic kung fu style from existence. Only two Ching brothers and their two sons remain of the family, and even after they have been in hiding for over 15 years, the Heaven and Earth Devils have remained stalwart in their villainous quest. These are some seriously evil dudes. Well, to be fair to the Heaven Devil (the always awesome Yen Shi-Kwan), does say that he’s taking out the Ching brothers to avenge his father’s death. So maybe they’re actually the “good” guys. After all, we can’t judge people solely by their evil eyebrows — sorry, I meant to say maybe-evil-maybe-good-who-can-really-know-the-content-of-a-man’s-soul-from-an-eyebrow eyebrows.