Armour of God is widely considered to be one of Jackie Chan's best films, but it left me feeling a bit flat. Yes, there's some great action, fighting and stunts, but the film seriously lags in the middle. Many of Chan's films during this period had what I term the "girl-chasing" scene, where Chan (or one of his co-stars) literally chase a girl around trying to get into her pants. There's nothing wrong with this in small doses, but in Armour of God, it goes on for about 15 minutes (or at least seems like it) and really slows the movie down.

Overall, though, there's plenty of the "good stuff" (read: Jackie opening a can of whoop ass) to please Jackie Chan fans and make this film worth at least one viewing.

Some notes:

REVIEW:
Not one of Jackie's best films, yet has the distinction for having some of his most notorious stunts. This was the film that came the closest to ending his life after suffering a serious head injury when taking a fall from a tree branch early in the film. The other noteworthy stunt appears at the end when Jackie freefalls onto a hot air balloon.

The film begins well with a scene where Jackie steals a sword from a group of stereotypical natives and ends with him flying away to safety with only a missing snake to really differentiate it from The Lost Ark. Three inches of hair growth later (after recovering from that nasty fall), the film looses steam as we see a lot of routine plotting leading up to the final confrontation. The main problem with a number of Jackie's international efforts is the generally poor performances of the non-Asian actors. This is true here as well. The evil religious organization Jackie fights and the woman he teams up with are all completely uninteresting. In fact, Rosamund Kwan fares only slightly better with a throw away role. Only Alan Tam manages to entertain with a bit of sidekick humor. The true stars of this film are the stunts. We find Jackie sliding down a steep grassy incline with natives, a James Bond like car chase with cars and motorcycles leaping bridges and sending extras running in every direction, and expected martial arts with Jackie trading kicks with four high-heeled vixens.

Unfortunately there isn't much kung fu action except at the beginning and end. The payoff comes when Jackie returns to the evil monks' lair. Four black ladies with nasty dispositions try to poke a few holes in Jackie. This whole scene is worth the rest of the film.

As a whole, the film falls flat with a goofy plot, plenty of bad acting, and much of the intended comedy failing. Taken in doses, Armour of God has some truly great stunts, Jackie's usual charm shines through, and the location shooting is well done.

An evil religious cult decides that the best way to get hold of the armour is to get someone else to do it for them. To this end they kidnap one of Jackie's old flames, Laura (Rosamund Kwan), and issue a ransom demand that requires the retrieval of the armour. In a previous life Jackie, Laura and best friend Alan (Alan Tam) were all members of the same pop group with both men holding a candle to Laura. When Laura chose Alan the friendship ended but Jackie agrees to put aside his differences and help Alan in the rescue.

The film is a mixed bag of stunts, fighting and comedy but with far too many slow dialogue scenes that space the action out too widely. After a stunning opening where Jackie steals an ancient sword (part of the 'Armour of God') from an African tribe (although filmed in Yugoslavia) the movie slows down to a snail pace. The next hour only really contains one action scene where Jackie and Alan are involved in spectacular car chase. The scene is worth waiting for as it contains some truly amazing stunts not least of which is a car jump over a two lained carraigeway with traffic. The whole sequence is filled with the kinds of stunts that make you wonder how nobody got hurt (or makes you think that they probably did). Get past the car chase though and its another half hour before things start to get interesting again.

It isn't until the last twenty minutes that 'Armour of God' really starts to shine. Aside from a couple of very short sequences it isn't until then that you actually get a proper fight scene. Grumbles about the lack of action aside, the fights in AOG are some of Jackie's finest especially the finale where he takes on four Amazonian black women. The fight is full of rewind moments and the speed of the sequence impresses as much as the choreography (in an interview on UK television in the eighties Jackie was adamant that nothing had been speeded up).

AOG was one of the most successful Hong Kong films of the eighties although in my opinion it was bettered in terms of action and scale by its sequel 'Operation Condor'...

Ironically, it's the parts that are least derivative of Raiders that may reduce its entertainment value to westerners. The plot of Armor of God is largely a romantic comedy, concentrating on all of the misunderstandings that develop between Jackie and his two costars.

The setup is as follows: Asian Hawk (Jackie) and Alan (Alan Tam) were once lead singers in schlocky band called The Losers. Laura (Rosamund Kwan, from Once Upon a Time in China) was a backup singer. Asian Hawk fell in love with Laura, and vice versa, but Hawk left her and the band to pursue a life of adventure. So Laura settled with Alan.

Years later, out of the blue, Alan contacts Asian Hawk. It seems Laura has been kidnapped, and Alan needs Hawk's skills to free her. The kidnappers are looking for (and here's where the Raiders-style stuff comes in) the Armor of God, a battle suit in five parts that will give its owner mystic powers. Alan somehow got his hands on one piece. The kidnappers, an order of Satanic monks, have three pieces, and a duke in Spain has the last piece. So Alan and Hawk convince the duke to give them his piece, though they have to take his marksman daughter with them.

Rescuing Laura from the monk's mountainside castle turns out to be easy and happens with little incident, so Alan and Hawk manage to hold on to their pieces of the Armor. What then follows is a protracted and somewhat boring bedroom farce where Hawk and Alan both try to prove to their satisfaction that Laura stills loves them. At the time this may have been what Hong Kong audiences wanted to see, and it may have been novel for them to see it coming from an action idol like Jackie Chan. But this part of the movie is a way too long-winded and predictable for our tastes.

Luckily for us, it turns out that Laura is under the spell of the monks and she steals the Armor from Alan and Hawk. So Hawk has to infiltrate the monk's castle (again) to rescue Laura (again) and hopefully steal the valuable Armor. Here's where the movie really shines, as we see Hawk fight and stunt his way through the corridors of the castle.

Standout scenes are many. At one point Hawk holds off an army of monks with a flaming log. Nothing phallic there! A little later a food fight breaks out. But the best fight scene in the movie is that last one, where Hawk takes on four blaxploitation Amazon women in skimpy leather outfits (who mysteriously change into Chinese guys in drag whenever they have to take a fall) in a battle for the Armor. Hawk is at a disadvantage because he doesn't think it's right to hit a woman, and the amazons keep aiming their stiletto-heeled kicks right at Hawk's family jewels. The fight is fast, furious and funny, with both sides of combatants switching strategies several times in an attempt to neutralize the other side's advantages. Kung-fu fighting is never so much fun as when it's in a Jackie Chan film!

There are stories about the making of nearly every Jackie Chan movie, but the stories about this one are some of the most spectacular yet. While filming the opening scene, Jackie fell 30 feet from a tree, hit his head on a rock, and put a hole in his skull. However, we understand that the rock was even worse off for hitting Jackie's head. In any case, you can see this proud moment in Jackie history in the out-takes at the end of the film. We also see out-takes from Jackie's love scenes, which he claims scared him even more than falling from a tree.