Fearless Master

When I saw this movie it went under the name Fearless Hyena III. Luckily it was shown on tv, so I didn't waste any money on this one. It's without a doubt the worst kung fu movie I have ever seen. It seems like they went through the phone book to find a guy with a similar name to Jackie Chan then they put him in this movie, the difference between Jackie Chan and Jackie Chen is that the real action hero has impeccable fighting skills while Jackie Chen can't perform a kick properly. Neither can anyone else in this production. Don't watch it, whatever you do! Learn from my mistake. I gave it a 1, and trust me it deserved it.

FEARLESS MASTER, aka FEARLESS HYENA 3, is one of the most blatant rip-offs I've yet to watch. It has nothing to do with FEARLESS HYENA or indeed its sequel, and it features a performer by the name of Jackie Chen, who was completely new to me. I'm familiar with Bruceploitation movies, but had never heard of Jackieploitation before! The story is some misguided, muddled piece of fluff about an upstanding young fighter battling against a gang of cruel thugs - you know the routine. The hero is one Jackie Chen, who looks like Jackie Chan and has exactly the same haircut, although he's noticeably older. There's an old beggar type master who puts Jackie through his paces with some fun training sequences, but most of this film is about the action.

There's plenty of it, but the choreography is only average, unfortunately. It's fun to watch but lacks the finesse of a Yuen Woo-ping choreographed movie, although of course you could do a lot worse. One high point is Bolo Yeung's presence as one of the thugs; wearing an orange jump suit, he looks like an escapee from Guantanamo Bay! I could also swear I saw Tsui Hark in a cameo although I might have been mistaken. FEARLESS MASTER also contains a random insert of a snake vs. mongoose fight which I'm pretty sure was stolen from a different movie.

Watched this because it popped up under John Cheung Ng-Long's name on Amazon Prime. The only other goo thing about this film is Bolo. The best way to describe John's character is Ex Machina. He pops up whenever Jacky Chen is in over his head. John is behind the make-up for the "old" laoshi who teaches Jacky better skills. I gave this a 6 for John and Bolo, two performers I admire. If I were to score it w/o them - 1.