An odds and sods effort from Lo Wei and Chan Chuen, thrown together to make some money when Jackie Chan broke his contract to follow Willie Chan to Golden Harvest. Fearless Hyena II is an artless inconsistent thing, cobbled together out of deleted scenes from previous Wei / Chan collaborations, that takes sixty minutes to stumble towards an inciting incident. In the meantime we're subjected to Chan stuffing eels down his pants and wringing a hen's neck. An early scene, clipped out of the original Fearless Hyena, gives a tyrannical restaurateur free reign to insult the star, drawing attention to his girlish hair, big nose and even his eyelid surgery. After breaking some antique bowls, Lung flees rather than settle up with the owner. Following an interlude featuring Austin Wai's Tung, an obnoxious teenage inventor in possession of an automated shack, we're back with our so-called hero, this time gambling away his friend's medicine money.
Fearless Hyena II often feels like Lo Wei's revenge, a petty attempt to undermine and ridicule a star who had departed, leaving Wei in the lurch. In a sense Chan actually complies with this conceit, delivering some deeply unenthusiastic capering in his surviving scenes. Wei and Chuen burn through their previously unseen Jackie Chan footage pretty quickly, handing Hyena II over to heavily made-up stand-ins for the remainder of the film. From a certain point onwards Lung is only seen from a distance or with a branch conveniently obscuring his face. Wei's stunt Jackies aren't even particularly talented, their motions are dull and sluggish by comparison. This consistent sense of indignity even extends to the finale fight. Recycled Chan footage is subordinated by Tung's newly discovered kung-fu abilities and his elaborate bamboo death traps. Chan is used as a placeholder, manfully wearing down the final opponent so Austin Wai can leap in at the last possible second to deliver the killer blow.
No comments:
Post a Comment