Jackie Chan's first directorial assignment is a showcase for its courageous star, whose considerable reputation rests on his near-masochistic willingness to accept incredible amounts of physical punishment in order to entertain an audience, and, as the title suggests, his ability to laugh about it.
Chan plays Shing Lung, a talented but lazy young fighter who disobeys his grandfather's orders not to fight. This proves costly, as the brutal General Yen (Yam Sai-kwoon) is slaughtering all of Shing's grandfather's anti-Ching clan. As soon as Yen hears of Shing's unique fighting style, he hunts down the grandfather (
James Tien) and kills him. Shing has to take various jobs (including one as a second-hand coffin salesman) and disguise himself as a pauper and a woman until he is ready to fight the general.
Chan Hui-lau plays the crippled master known as the Unicorn, who trains Shing in a deadly form of fighting called "emotional kung-fu," which uses laughter and tears as secret weapons. After a lengthy training sequence in which the long-suffering
Chan does 14 sit-ups upside-down without a cut while loudly slamming his back into a tree after each, Shing finally takes on the general and his trio of assistants. For this film,
Chan returned to producer
Lo Wei's studio to fulfill a contract, then refused to work for the studio again. The producer managed to cobble together a paste-up sequel,
Fearless Hyena 2, but was so incensed at
Chan that he reportedly used his triad ties to put out a contract on the star, forcing
Chan to work in Taiwan for some time rather than returning to Hong Kong. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide