moudaf neelam khrysti

[Salvador Baltimore]

The film combines Chan's martial arts, comedy and stunts with an Indiana Jones style adventure film theme. It is deemed a cult classic.[citation needed] Chan came the closest he had ever been to death in this film during a relatively routine stunt; he leaped onto a tree from a ledge, but the branch he grabbed snapped, sending Chan plummeting and cracking his skull.[4][5]

Jackie, a.k.a. "Asian Hawk", is a former musician who becomes an adventurer and treasure hunter. After successfully stealing a sword from an African tribe, he has the weapon auctioned before it is won by May Bannon, the beautiful daughter of Count Bannon.

Jackie is reunited with his former bandmate Alan, who seeks his help as his girlfriend Lorelei has been kidnapped by an evil religious cult as a means of acquiring Jackie's services. The cult possesses two pieces of a legendary armour called the "Armour of God", and they intend to have Jackie bring them the three remaining armour pieces, including the sword. Jackie and Alan strike a deal with Count Bannon, who is in possession of the three armour pieces: they will borrow the armour pieces for their quest to rescue Lorelei with a promise to complete the armour for the Count, on the condition that May accompanies them.

Jackie, Alan and May travel into Yugoslavia to find the cult's monastery. They infiltrate the hideout and secretly rescue Lorelei, unaware that the cult leaders have anticipated their arrival and brainwashed her to do their bidding. At May's rest home, Lorelei drugs Alan and has him steal the three armour pieces. Jackie sneaks back to the monastery and rescues his friends. As Alan and Lorelei make their escape, Jackie fends off against the cult members before discovering the Armour of God in a cave. Before he gets a chance to take the armour, he encounters the Grand Wizard, who unleashes his four female assassins on the adventurer. Exploiting their high-heeled shoes as their weakness, Jackie defeats the assassins in a gruelling fight. Jackie is then surrounded by the rest of the Grand Wizard's men, but he reveals a vest filled with sticks of dynamite under his jacket, threatening to blow himself up with the monastery. After a couple of bluffs, he carelessly lights up the fuse and throws away the sticks of dynamite, running for his life as the monastery quickly begins to cave in, burying the entire cult and the Armour of God. He runs out of a cave and spots a hot-air balloon with Alan, Lorelei, and May aboard. In a daring move, Jackie does a base jump off the cave and lands on top of the balloon, ending the movie.

Armour of God was filmed on location in parts of what was then Yugoslavia: Zagreb (Dolac Central Market), Upper town, Trnje (near the then-unfinished building of Croatian Radio Television), Croatia, narrow corridors and the main gate of Motovun castle and Predjama Castle near Postojna, Slovenia. Filming was also undertaken in Graz, Austria, France, Spain and Morocco. During filming of the opening sequence, one scene called for Jackie Chan to jump from a wall to a tree branch. The first take went as planned, but Chan insisted on re-shooting the scene. On his second attempt, the branch broke, and he fell 5 metres to the ground below. His head hit a rock, cracking his skull and forcing a piece of bone up into his brain. Chan was flown to the hospital and was in surgery eight hours later. As a result, he now has a permanent hole in his head filled with a plastic plug and slight hearing loss in his right ear.[4][5] Actor Eric Tsang filled in as director following the accident.[8] Footage of the accident is shown during the film's ending credits.

While shooting the hot-air balloon jump, Chan skydived out of a plane and landed on top of the balloon instead of jumping off a cliff as is seen in the film. For the shot of him jumping off the cliff, the crew rigged him up to a wire as he had no experience of BASE jumping.[5]

In Asia, some versions of the film had Alan Tam's song "Lorelei" playing during the end credits whereas others had Jackie Chan singing "Flight of the Dragon (aka High upon High)". Tam and Chan recorded both songs in Cantonese and English and their English versions were featured in the export English dubs.

In the United States, Armour of God did not receive a theatrical release.[29] The film's sequel, Armour of God II: Operation Condor (1991), was released under the simplified title Operation Condor. Armour of God was subsequently released direct-to-video by Miramax Films, but the title was changed to Operation Condor 2: The Armor of the Gods; at the time of its release it served as a prequel, despite being the first film. A new musical score was created for this release, and a new English dub (with the participation of Chan).

During the shooting of Armour of God, Jackie Chan almost died when he fell five metres during a stunt and cracked his skull, forcing a piece of bone into his brain. It was the worst accident of his career, but it wasn't going to stop him. Five years later, he was back for Armour of God II: Operation Condor.

This time the Indiana Jones-style treasure hunter Asian Hawk is on the trail of Nazi gold in the Sahara Desert, and the stunts are even bigger, the action more outrageous and the accidents almost as painful, but thankfully not quite so life-threatening. Don't miss this chance to see the newly-restored Armour of God II: Operation Condor on the big screen, showing as part of the nationwide Scalarama season.

Disappointed when his first film in the US market (The Protector) flopped, the great martial arts-comedian Chan returned to Hong Kong where he'd got his start and made Police Story, a violent but hilarious action caper where he is a hapless cop on a drug bust.

It is a film Chan is still proud of and it is punctuated by terrific set pieces which seem to be referenced in classic American cinema archetypes such as the Keystone Cops, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers and Jerry Lewis.

There is a clever playfulness about the storyline (hapless detective, misunderstandings with his girlfriend, ultra-violent but slapstick encounters with villains which recall The Three Stooges) and it is the dramatic set pieces for which the film has been acclaimed, not the least the bookend action. Close to the start cars crash through a mountainside village setting the place ablaze, and at the climax there is an astonishing fight in a shopping mall which reduces the place to a glass-strewn mess and ends when Chan does a death-defying dive down a three-storey trail of lights which explode. It's so good that the film shows it three times from different angles.

The success of this funny and sometimes violent film launched a whole Police Story series, and inspired some interesting homage sequences in subsequent American films such as Tango and Cash starring Sly Stone and Kurt Russell (1989).

Chan followed it up with the equally acclaimed action-comedy Armour of God in '87 which opens brilliantly with some ooga-booga primitives about to sacrifice a topless woman to the Holy Sword and Jackie out-fighting them.

Nominally the story -- which owes a debt to Indiana Jones -- is about locating the five pieces of the armour of God and a pipe-smoking Baron who lives in a castle guarded by 50 dogs and three leopards. And there are drug-dealing monks and some Partridge Family-type acting. It was all faintly silly and didn't get US theatrical release, but it became Chan's biggest grossing movie in Hong Kong and -- coupled with the reception for Police Story -- drew American attention his way.

The effect of these two films -- and Armour of God also launched sequels -- was to get him his long yearned-for foothold in the States. But he took his time and weighed up his options and by the mid-Nineties was on his way after Rumble in the Bronx got him a cult following outside of American-Asian audiences.

A mid-price set of three early Jackie Chan films Project A, Police Story and Armour of God is readily available as Jackie Chan: The Master Collection. Each film is digitally restored and remastered with Dolby 5.1 surround sound and comes with rare footage and special features.

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