Jackie Chan monkeys around in his "official" directorial debut THE FEARLESS HYENA, on Blu-ray from 88 Films.

Shing Lung (Chan) is an embarrassment to his grandfather (James Tien, THE BIG BOSS), gambling, getting into fights, and risking revealing the secret of their sect's brand of Kung Fu to strangers. His grandfather has good reason for his secrecy since he has been stalked for years by Yam Tin-fa (Shi-Kwan Yen, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA) of the rival Xing Yee school. In spite of his grandfather's disappointment, Shing Lung in trying to find an honest job impresses crooked Kung Fu school master Tee Cha (Kun Li, FIST OF FURY) who pays him well in a scam operation to draw students away from other schools, passing him off as the lowliest employee capable of beating any challenger as proof of the effectiveness of his teaching. Lung unknowingly attracts the attention of Yam Tin-fa, inadvertently leading him to his target; whereupon, Lung's only opportunity for revenge is to finally take his training seriously and complete it with his grandfather's longtime colleague The Unicorn (Hui Lou Chen, THE SHAOLIN AVENGERS).

Positioned as the next Bruce Lee by producer Lo Weh, Jackie Chan's early career did not live up to the hype in his first vehicles, but the surprise back-to-back success of SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW and THE DRUNKEN MASTER afforded Chan the opportunity to step behind the camera with THE FEARLESS HYENA. The revenge storyline is not particularly novel, and told in the broadest strokes; however, the bulk of the film is taken up by episodes that give Chan an opportunity to show off his comic flare through fight scenes, including one where he appears in drag to teach a "sex pest" a lesson. The third act takes on a more dramatic turn at first before Chan's novice is taught "emotional Kung Fu" to manipulate and psychologically disarm his opponent which does not quite come off as a comic set-piece while the final scene turns back towards the "at what price revenge" dramatic freeze frame. A modest directorial debut, THE FEARLESS HYENA was only four years away from his more internationally-successful epic period action comedy PROJECT A.

Shortened by five minutes for its export version – released stateside theatrically by 21st Century Film Corporation as REVENGE OF THE DRAGON – THE FEARLESS HYENA was restored to its original Hong Kong version length (97 minutes) for its various DVD releases including a Columbia Tri-Star DVD, bar one shot at the end lost in the mastering. As with other Fortune Star catalogue titles, THE FEARLESS HYENA was upscaled from SD for its earlier Hong Kong, German, and Japanese Blu-ray editions while 88 Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray benefits from a new 2K restoration of the original 35mm camera negatives. The film's bizarre lens choices in some shots, zooms, and some frenetic handheld tracking shots hold up better in HD, and texture comes out in skin, clothing, and the Taiwanese location scenery where backgrounds were either murky or blown-out on VHS and flat on DVD. As expected with 88 Films, there are a plethora of audio options: the original Cantonese mono track in DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0, a Cantonese DTS 1.0 mono option that mixes the dialogue track with the M&E track from the Japanese release – which added a funky theme song "Crazy Monkey" throughout the film (including the supposed-to-be-suspenseful finale) – the terrible English dub in DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0, and a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English dub with the same voicing that is only sporadically interesting in terms of directional and surround activity. Optional English subtitles are available for the Cantonese track while a second track is available for the English track for onscreen text.