Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Armour of God (Chinese: 龍兄虎弟, Long xiong hu di) is a 1986 Hong Kong martial arts-action film co-directed by, and starring Jackie Chan. The film features Chan's regular kung-fu, comedy and stunts, with an Indiana Jones-style theme. During a relatively routine stunt in this film Chan came the closest he has ever been to death when a tree branch snapped sending Chan plummeting a huge distance and cracking his skull.
In the movie Jackie plays the character of Asian Hawk (the character's real-name being also Jackie), an adventurer with a mercenary-like way of thought. Jackie used to perform in a band with his friends Alan and Laura (Lorelei) before he was kicked out of the band by Alan, who wanted Laura for himself. At the beginning of the film Jackie steals a sword from an African tribe that is one of the five pieces of a valuable armour known as the Armour of God. Alan is still a successful singer and Laura is a renowned fashion-designer,
An evil cult wants to destroy the armour and has already collected two pieces of it. To get the final three pieces they kidnap Laura to force Alan to get Jackie to collect the remaining pieces of the armour for the cult.
* This film was taped in Croatia and Slovenia.
* Chan and his crew were filming in Yugoslavia and the scene called for him to jump from a wall to a tree branch. The first take went perfectly, but Jackie wasn't satisfied and had wanted to do the scene once more. The second time, his grip on the branch slipped and Jackie fell 15 feet to the ground below. He landed on a rock on his head, causing part of his skull to crack and shoot up into his brain. He was flown to the hospital and was in surgery 8 hours later. He now has a plastic plug, and a permanent hole in his head. He is also slightly hard of hearing in one ear from that fall. Chan took time off for a month in recuperation, touring across Europe. During his recuperation, Producer Raymond Chow opted Chan to keep his hair long, which explains the continuity problem between his short hairdo in the beginning in the film to the long hair we see after completing the tree stunt once more along with the rest of the film.
* In the scene where Jackie infiltrates the cult's hideout and rescues Alan and Laura, Laura addressed Jackie's name as "Kong-Sang". When Jackie tries to leave Alan in the prison by himself, Alan addressed his full name as "Chan Kong-Sang". In an ironic twist, "Chan Kong-Sang" is actually Jackie Chan's birth name in real life. However, in the U.S. version of the movie, Jackie's name had been changed from Kong-Sang to "cowboy". Whether this change is due to Chan's childhood fascination as a cowboy or merely a ploy to westernize the character of Asian Hawk is up for debate.
At the Hong Kong box office, Armour of God was Jackie Chan's biggest hit up to that point, grossing HK $35,469,408 in its theatrical run.
In North America, Armour of God was released direct-to-video by Miramax after the theatrical distribution of its sequel, Armour of God 2: Operation Condor, which was released in North America as simply Operation Condor. As such, the title Armour of God was changed, somewhat confusingly, to Operation Condor 2: The Armor of the Gods it was released after Operation Condor.
A new musical score was created for this release, and English dubbing (with the participation of Chan) was also done. Nine minutes of cuts were made to the Miramax version, including:
* The concert scene of Jackie Chan's band, 'The Losers.'
* Chan's dream sequence.
* The scene in which May (played by Lola Forner), disguised as a prostitute, encounters a monk who wants to sleep with her.
* An extended version of the slapstick sequence in which Alan (played by Alan Tam) hides in May's room. The scene also includes Laura (while under the cult's spell) attempting to seduce Jackie.