Armour Of God - Special Collector's Edition

Jackie Chan’s Armour of God isn’t all that taxing on the mind and is definitely just another vehicle for Jackie’s insane brand of stunts and martial arts. Chan plays the main character known as “Asian Hawk� – an ex-pop star turned Indiana Jones of sorts, who spends his time searching for precious artefacts from around the globe.

His latest acquisition gets him into a bit of hot water with a dubious group of Satanists, and as it turns out he has recovered a sword which is one of the five pieces of the mythological “Armour of God�. The Satanists’ plan is to destroy the Armour, and ultimately breaking God’s power over earth in the process. To do this they kidnap his old band mate’s girlfriend, with the ransom being all the pieces of the Armour. Jackie and his mate then set off on a mission to track down the remaining pieces and rescue the girl.

As was the case with Chan’s Police Story, the plot takes a back seat and merely just sets up the next showdown or high speed car chase. Granted these action set pieces look excellent. The balance between story and action is a bit of mess and it was something Jackie really struggled with during his first couple of outings in which he acted, directed, & wrote at the same time.

Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (16:9 Enhanced) the video quality is quite good for the film’s age. Colour detail was a little washed out but overall was still quite good. There were some instances of telecine wobble noticeable and the print used for the transfer wasn’t as clean as it could have been with a number of dirt specks visible throughout.

There are two dub options for the audio which accompany the feature; an English Dolby Digital 5.1 and a Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1. As you would expect the lip synching is poor, in fact downright atrocious even for the Cantonese dub. Both soundtracks are front heavy with minimal information sent to the surrounds. Always sounding very flat and lacked any sort of dynamic range. The subwoofer is mostly dormant throughout the film.

A small collection of extras have been assembled for this release and unfortunately it seems Hong Kong Cinema expert Bey Logan must have had the day off when they were working on this DVD. His usually informative commentary is notably absent on the disc. First up is a Photo Gallery that consists of 33 static pages of still images taken from of the film.

Next up is what appears to be a regular feature in the Hong Kong Legends DVD series is the Animated Biography Showcase (35:29). Jackie’s bio is read aloud accompanied by scrolling text and images that change as the bio progresses. This is nearly identical to the one used for the extra on the Police Story DVD.

Next is an Interview (4:05) with Jackie Chan that is all too brief. Chan discusses some of his stunt work and the film’s climatic showdown. Another Interview (3:40) is with Willie Chan, Jackie’s business manager. Willie talks about Jackie’s near death experience while filming the opening stunt of the film where he fell from a great height and cracked his skull.

And rounding out the extras are twoTheatrical Trailers; the first is the UK Hong Kong legends DVD trailer and the second is the original theatrical trailer. As well as Trailers for other titles include The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Game of Death, Iron Monkey, & Once Upon a Time in China.

Armour of God is definitely not one of Chan’s better films. While the action is good, the weak plot and hammy acting make this a hard task to sit through.

The transfer itself is reasonable save for the audio, however given the lack of quality extras on offer I would find it hard to recommend this disc to anyone other than a Jackie Chan completist.