Armour Of God (DVD)

...triumphant and evil retreated. The armour of the Champion of good was called the Armour of God.

The evil sect has re emerged and believes that if they can obtain this armour and destroy it, then the Good God will be destroyed and Evil will reign triumphant. Well that's the theory.

To help them in their ends the sect kidnap the ex girlfriend of "The Asian Hawk" who is a type of bounty hunter of ancient artefacts. ...
...title "Operation Condor 2, The Armour of God". This is because, even though made before the film "Operation Condor", it had an international release after the second film made in 1991. This all after Jackie became a big star in America and they started to re-release his back catalogue of films.

I feel that I must give you one quote from the film.

High Priest: Who gave you the courage to be killed ... more

Having bought new DVD players for both my wife and myself, I have been getting some DVD's for both of us. I quite like comedy and find the films of Jackie Chan both entertaining and amusing.

Plot synopsis:-

Long ago and far away, the followers of good and evil warred on each other. At last good was triumphant and evil retreated. The armour of the Champion of good was called the Armour of God.

The evil sect has re emerged and believes that if they can obtain this armour and destroy it, then the Good God will be destroyed and Evil will reign triumphant. Well that's the theory.

To help them in their ends the sect kidnap the ex girlfriend of "The Asian Hawk" who is a type of bounty hunter of ancient artefacts. This ex girlfriend's current boyfriend is a singer who asks for help of "The Hawk" and accompanies the quest.

Jackie Chan plays "The Asian Hawk" A more mercenary type of "Indiana Jones", who is in the business of recovering ancient articles and selling them.

This is the start of a series of chase and fight scenes which culminate in a quite spectacular fight. I do not wish to spoil this for anybody who has not seen it, but it is classic.

The stunts and fights are all performed with a very high degree of skill. I will say more on this later.

This film was made before Jackie Chan was the international star that he is today. Whilst there are some comic moments, I find that the comedy element is not as emphasised as it will be in some other films. The comedy is there, just not as emphasised as say "Operation Condor" or "Rush Hour"

This film is made in Cantonese and has been dubbed into English. It took me quite a while to realise what was putting me off. It is the dubbing. The voice attributed to Chan has a distinct American accent. I like the films of Jackie Chan and having heard him speak realised that this dubbing is nothing like him.

The default sound operation of the disc is English, the other option is Cantonese with subtitles in English and Dutch. This may prove better if, like me, you do not like the dubbing. However I cannot get the subtitles to work on my copy. I can change the main language though but unless you do speak Cantonese you will have no idea of what they are saying.

There are some extras included on this disc.
There is an interview with Jackie Chan, giving some details of the final fight.
There is an interview with Willie Chan, Jackie's long time manager describing his feelings on the serious accident that Jackie suffered during the making of the film.
There is a photo gallery.
There is the original trailer for the film and a theatrical trailer also.
There is an animated biography where the text scrolls up the screen with a voice commentary of the text.
There is a section by Hong Kong Legends, where they advertise some of their other discs.

Film length 94 minutes.
Region 2 coded.
Rated as 15.
Film made 1987.

This film was written and directed by Jackie Chan. He had seen the Harrison Ford " Indiana Jones" film and wanted to make his own version. The middle sequence is not up to his normal standard as he was still recovering from his accident as noted in the next paragraph. Because of his injury and he was the director as well as the star and the time constraints, it was not possible for the company to wait while he recovered properly.

Over the final credits of the film, written in Chinese, there is a sequence of out takes, including the one of Jackie's accident where he fell and broke his skull. Others are a lot funnier, where some action sequence has gone wrong and usually laughter is the result. The stunts were choreographed with the help of The Jackie Chan Stunt Company. A group of professional stunt persons who have worked with Jackie and are used to his exacting standards for the stunt and fight scenes. Getting this right can take a lot of shooting and they are of importance to the final production of the film. Editing can only do so much.

This version is a digitally re mastered version of the Asian version containing sequences that were cut from the international version. They certainly got about in the filming of this one. Locations are Czech Republic Morocco. Paris, France. Philippines. Postojnska Jama, Slovenia. Spain. Vienna, Austria. Yugoslavia. Zagreb, Croatia. See if you can recognise the locations as the film plays. I recognised some but not all.

I cannot tell you much about the other actors in this film. I do not know them. I am more normally to be found with my nose inside a book rather than a film watcher. I can not say if they are good, bad or indifferent. I take the film as made. Here all the actors' play there parts well. I do not say that you would find them totally believable if you found them in the street. But this is film land not the street. It just has to be believable long enough. And for me this works. What I have noted is that Jackie Chan does seem to enjoy himself making films. He seems to have a lot of fun even while being somewhat of a perfectionist and nearly killing himself with stunts.

It's a fun film to watch, Collectors of Jackie Chan may well want their own copy, and others may prefer to rent a copy. It is not great art or drama, but then it was never meant to be. It is humorous enough and quite watch able. The final fight is reguarded as something of a classic among some of the martial arts fans.

This film is listed on Amazon.co.uk priced at £5.97 a saving of 70% from the list price of £19.99. Available on 24hr delivery.

This film sometimes has the title "Operation Condor 2, The Armour of God". This is because, even though made before the film "Operation Condor", it had an international release after the second film made in 1991. This all after Jackie became a big star in America and they started to re-release his back catalogue of films.

I feel that I must give you one quote from the film.

High Priest: Who gave you the courage to be killed here?
Jackie: I obey my god's every command. He looks after all my needs. I always say yes to him. Never no.
High Priest: Who is your god? What is your religion?
Jackie: I believe in a powerful religion. The name of my god is... money.
High Priest: Prepare to be sacrificed to your money god.

I think that a lot of people follow the same God. 

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