Director: Jackie Chan

Starring: Jackie Chan, Alam Tam, Rosamund Kwan, Lola Forner,

Featuring: Ken Boyle, John Ladalski

While watching Armour of God some of the more astute viewers might notice that in the opening sequence Jackie sports a very short and tidy haircut far removed from his trademark main. After the opening sequence Jackie once again returns to his traditional look and the audience thinks nothing more of it. The real story behind these two different hairstyles is very significant as it involves the near death of Chan during a stunt that went horribly wrong in Yugoslavia.

During the second take of shot in which he jumps down to a tree Jackie slipped and landed on some rocks resulting in his skull being punctured and a chunk of bone being pushed into his brain. He was quickly rushed to a hospital for emergency brain surgery where the hole was plugged up and Jackie was saved. The reason why the hair styles are different is because Jackie was convinced to sport the short haircut by the films original director Eric Tsang. When the accident happened only some of the scenes for the movie had been filmed and when Jackie was ready to return his hair had grown to its usual length. As a result all of the original scenes were abandoned and shot again except for the ones involving the opening sequence. Jackie kept his hair its traditional style for the remainder of the film which is why the styles are different. It’s a minor thing that I thought nothing of when first watching the film many years ago and only discovered the truth when reading Chan’s biography. In the biography Chan mentions that producer Raymond Chow wouldn’t let him touch his hair ever again after the accident believing it to be the source of his powers!

Armour of God is a fun film that Jackie made as an homage to the Indiana Jones films by Steven Spielberg. In it he plays a treasure hunter known as Asian Hawk who has tracked down one of the pieces of the Armour of God in order to sell. Meanwhile a religious cult is eager to recover all the pieces of armour in order to destroy it and rid the world of God. They kidnap the girlfriend of pop star Alan Tam and hold her ransom for the full set of armour knowing that Alan is a friend of Asian Hawk and that the Asian Hawk is the only man capable of obtaining all the pieces for them. Alan asks Hawk for help and off they go in search of the remaining pieces of the armour.

Far from being one of Jackie’s best films Armour of God is still a very enjoyable experience. It does try to tell a story in the vein of the Indiana Jones films with talk of God and treasure hunters with the biggest divergence being the religious cult instead of Nazis but being a Hong Kong film it falls far short of delivering the same kind of experience. Also there is less fighting in this than in most of Jackie’s other more well known films with the biggest fights happening in the final reel against four big black ladies of terror. As a matter of fact Armour of God is mostly remembered for this particular fight sequence and it has to be seen to be believed as it truly is a credit to the Chanster. Once again manufacturer Mitsubishi provide the cars for Chan to trash including jeeps and motorbikes and Jackie himself even gets some sort of concept motor to rally in. The concept car looks stupid and is a completely impractical creation but Asian Hawk doesn’t seem to mind especially when it comes in handy during a narrow escape on a bridge. If you haven’t seen it I’ll not say what happens as it still makes me slap my head in disbelief.

Chan is on typical form here. The opening scene has him stealing the sword of the armour from a tribe of natives and showcases some truly outrageous stunts. Interestingly in this sequence the stunt that near killed Chan was a very mundane stunt that they already had a perfect shot of. If you watch this film knowing Chan near died during a stunt but not knowing which one you’d undoubtedly guess the wrong one. Once again there’s more stunts and prop work in play than actual screen combat which is no bad thing. With Chan sliding down a grass slope with the natives in pursuit and plenty of back flipping off walls there’s plenty of edge-of-the-seat action to keep the audience entertained. The problem then is a huge lull between this opening sequence and the next bit of action that doesn’t happen until much later in the film. The only saving grace is that it’s worth the wait as it involves a high speed chase involving Chan in his super Mitsubishi and a barrage of cultist in jeeps and motorbikes. One particular shot of Chan’s Mitsubishi jumping over a motorway flyover is especially cool. As fans of Chan know his car stunts are as fast and furious as any of his other stunts and once again put Hollywood to shame in the fact that Chan’s team have a ridiculously small budget compared their counterparts in the states.

It’s the final reel in the film that delivers the best action and the most fights as Jackie first of all takes on a room full of Cultists and then finds himself squaring off against four women who, quite frankly, scare the crap out of me. These women are big, black and bad and give Chan a run for his money. The fight techniques here are fantastic and Jackie seems to opt more for actual fighting as opposed to the prop work fighting that he is well known for. Once again it’s hard to define the fighting as kung fu per say as there’s none of the techniques on show that are commonly displayed in the old school kung fu movies. This is flat out, balls to the wall fighting done as only Jackie Chan knows how. The fight against the cultists is a good taster for what is to come as Jackie takes on cultist after cultist eventually being overrun to the point where there are simply too many to fight. Then moments later when it seems he is safe he has to content with the four women mentioned early. To look at you wouldn’t think Jackie would have too much of a fight on his hands. Certainly they look menacing but we’ve just seen Chan take on a room full of cultists and only due to being grossly outnumbered would have emerged unscathed. When these ladies start to hit Jackie it soon becomes clear he was better off in the room full of cult members. This fight is full of trademark Chan falls and dives and one that sticks out in my mind is when he kicks the legs out from under one of the women fighters just before she hits the ground from a drop of several feet. She tumbles in midair and smacks clean off the floor in a sequence that looks extremely painful.

All in all Armour of God is an enjoyable Jackie flick. It lacks the breakneck pacing of some of his other contemporary films but the last twenty minutes are worth the price of admission alone. There’s a long sequence just after the midpoint of the film that you’ll either hate or love involving Chan, Alan, his girlfriend and the female character sent to keep an eye on Jackie as he retrieves the armour. I’ll not go into it in detail but it’s one of those scenes that probably went down a treat with the Asian fans but that doesn’t work for us Western viewers. There’s also some very bad pop music in this film as cheesy as you’ll find in most Hong Kong films of the time that just has to be put up with in order to get through the film. Once again the finale of the film more than makes up for all these shortcomings and in general the film is very easy to sit through. You many not care much about the characters or the intentions of the cultists and granted the story leaves a lot to be desired for but then Indiana Jones films hardly had plausible storylines so we can’t be too tough on Mr. Chan. Armour of God is one of Jackie’s better known films. It’s not perfect but it’s definitely worth checking out.

Film Review by: Chris Farhnam

You can buy this DVD now at: www.hongkong-store.com