The Fearless Four (film)

The Fearless Four(German:Die furchtlosen Vier) is a 1997 Germananimatedmusical filmloosely based on thefolk taleof the "Town Musicians of Bremen" by theBrothers Grimm, about four funny animals that all have one thing in common: they want to sing, but can't for assorted reasons. Combining traditional animation with computer animation, the film was produced byMunich Animationand released by the German unit ofWarner Bros.under theWarner Bros. Family Entertainmentlabel. ProducerEberhard Junkersdorfwon aBavarian Film Awardin 1998 for "Best Production".
The film first begins with Buster, abloodhound, who likes to sing and dance instead of doing his job to huntfoxes. His owners notice this and make a deal with one of the workers for the food factory, Mix Max (short for Mix and Match) to kill and stuff him, which they agree to it. Buster starts to worry, and tries to escape from being stuffed, which makes the worker chase him pull his tail. This makes Buster angry; he attacks them and then escapes.
Fred, an elderly, fragiledonkeyworked as a slave for his newly-replaced owner. A femalebeehelps Fred escape by leading other bees to swarm a driver in a truck with Fred being held hostage. When Fred is freed, signs for the direction toBremenandParison the road have been switched/turned around. Fred falls onto a tree, and meets a napping Buster. They have a conversation about wanting to be famous, singing animals and decide to travel to either one of the two cities and also choose where to go to become famous singers by spinning a bone, to see if it stops on Bremen or Paris. It stops on Paris (which is actually Bremen), and they start going there.
Gwendolyn, aSiamese cat, is sad after her owner, Aunt Wanda died. The people who inherited her estate only care about finding two gems and not taking care of her cat. They are upset that Aunt Wanda did not tell them where they are located in her farewell address and thinks that Gwendolyn knows where they are, and keeps them secret. They try to kill her with poisonedmilk, but their plan fails. They then hire a worker for Mix Max to kill her. Also, the kid that belongs to the two inheritors tries to kill her, but they all fail, and she traps them in the basement. After her escape, she meets up with Buster and Fred, who have heard her sing, and agree to let her join them on the journey.
Tortellini theroostergets kicked out of his home after his mate gets mad at him after having anaffairwith a femaleduck. He gets captured by a Mix Max worker, but is freed after a tree branch hits the cage. After meeting the three journeying animals, Fred kicks the cage to let him off, after demanding to get out. Tortellini talks to them about being a great singer, which annoys them; they leave him, but he goes with them. On their way, they meet anowlwho tells them they are going the wrong direction to Paris (they are heading toward Bremen) and says it is dangerous in Bremen, but the animals continue onward.
The town of Bremen is controlled byevil scientistDr. Greed, the manager of the Mix Max factory. He wants to use the animals' talent to improve the factory's image by singing a jingle advertising his sausage products. Though they become famous, the animals get bored singing the same jingle all the time. They try to get a change in music, but their idea gets rejected. The animals start to notice that the company owns their voices, and their freedom.
After an attempt to fight back, the animals end up getting thrown in aprison cellexcept for Fred, who getstickle torturedin a machine until he passes out from laughter. After he gets thrown in, amousenamed Mozart (named afterWolfgang Amadeus Mozart) tries to help them escape but fails to due to his small size. They eventually escape by Tortellini pulling Buster's tail while he sings to try to get help which makes him angry, and leads to him breaking the bars. While escaping the factory, the animals see Mix Max's scheme of caging animals to make their way to be slaughtered to make their sausages and try to promise to save them from being slaughtered. Eventually, during an election, the four animals protest with a song for the usage of lots of animals for the companie's sausages. They catch the attention with the people at the election, and cause a riot with tomatoes. After Dr. Greed, Platini, Dr. Sevenbrains, and a manager for the factory (Mix Max) escape, the animals trick and scare them by looking like an 8-eyed monster the owl mentioned earlier, and trapping them under a movable tiled floor after a battle between the animals and Dr. Greed and his henchmen (Platini, Dr. Sevenbrains, the manager for Mix Max) at their headquarters to get the remote that can free the animals out their cages. After they free the animals, Tortellini accidentally destroys the Mix Max factory after messing with the remote. The animals celebrate after the destruction of the factory and the four live together in a house with animals. Buster and Gwendolyn admit their feelings for each other and sing together with Tortellini and Fred accompanied them.
Production began in March 1995 (whenMunich Animationwas founded) and ended in December 1996. 150 people globally worked on the film, which included animators from the computer animation field working on the backgrounds, the robot centaur (Powertool) and the vehicles. The 2D animation was colored digitally. The film was produced and recorded for an English audience, and was later dubbed into German for its original release.
InNorth America, the English version was released onWarner Home Videoon May 7, 1998, but the VHS went quickly out of print and remains extremely rare. Germany received a DVD release twice; a regular release, and one from Warner Kids (a label for family-friendly Warner Bros. films) using the original title,Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten;neither DVD has any English audio and subtitle options. A much easier to find PAL VHS was released in theUnited Kingdomon July 19, 1999. Despite being virtually unknown in the United States and in most of the world, the English dub is currently available on sources such asVudu,iTunes,Amazon Prime Videoand theMicrosoft Store.In 2018,South Koreareleased a DVD with an English dub in it. It is unknown if Warner Bros. will bring out a Region 1 DVD release in the United States.
The original German-language version (with NTSC format) was uploaded by itsYouTubechannel, Movies [SnoopyPBG 2nd Channel], on November 15, 2021.
Various scenes were deleted from the original version, or shortened, when distributed outside Germany (making the international cut 81 minutes), as follows:
Stuffed animals,asoundtrack,Bullylandfigures,booksand other items were produced for the film's release in Germany.
The film was broadcast onHBOin 1999, and onEncorein North America.It was also seen on channels such asAB3(France),Cartoon Network(United Kingdom),Teletoon(Canada),YTVandTreehouse TV.