Armour of God

Armour of God is the closest Jackie Chan has been to dying. Within the first five minutes of the movie a relatively straightforward stunt goes horribly wrong, with Chan cracking open the back of his skull and requiring him to have major surgery, lose some hearing out of one of his ears and have a plug permanently inserted into his skull. Normally this would be enough of a major accident to completely stop a film’s production or require the lead actor to be replaced. Instead Jackie Chan went back to work, and took over directing duties as well. And it's a good thing too, since this fun romp is one of the more entertaining Chan movies.

Chan plays Jackie, the Asian Hawk, a treasure hunter/adventurer. He travels around the world, stealing artefacts and auctioning them off for big bucks. He is contacted by his friend Andy who desperately needs his help. Andy’s girlfriend (and Jackie’s former crush) Lorelei has been kidnapped by an evil cult seeking pieces of the legendary treasure, the Armour of God, a armour set said to bestow the owner with great power. They want Jackie to bring them the missing pieces of the treasure in exchange for Lorelei. Jackie and Andy receive backing by a rich Count who owns a few pieces of the Armour of God. He lends them his pieces on two conditions; that Jackie will bring him the full set, and that his daughter, May, goes with them. The trio head off to Eastern Europe to find the cult.

From there we get the usual collection of classic Chan awesomeness. There are fights, there are stunts, there are chases, there is wacky humour and slapstick nonsense, and it’s all a lot of fun. Armour of God also has the benefit of being filmed across Eastern Europe, with scenes in Croatia, Morocco, Austria and Yugoslavia. The settings give the movie its own unique feel against many other similar movies, including those in Chan’s filmography. The action is a lot of fun, and the stunts are pretty good as well. The climax of the film has Jackie leap from a Cliffside and land on a hot air balloon – while that was a bit of editing magic, the reality had Jackie skydive out of a plane to perform the stunt, which is just as freaky and dangerous. The stunt that went wrong was a simple one seen early on – Jackie jumps on a tree. It goes wrong (as shown in the credits) when a branch breaks and Jackie falls to the ground. After that scene, for the rest of the movie Chan has long hair to hide the surgery scars.

This is a pretty weird movie all things considered. There’s some awesome goofiness, such as Jackie’s custom Mitsubishi splitting off into a smaller getaway car. The opening scene is silly old school Asian racism, with tribal Africans depicted as gibberish spouting savages with spears, wooden masks and grass skirts. The evil cultists are a weird mob, made up of swarthy European dudes in monk’s robes, either brandishing machine guns or doing karate. Absolutely nothing about them makes sense, and everything about them is a bizarre series of ridiculous escalation. They live in a cavernous monastery, give out pamphlets in nearby towns, shoot-up concert halls to kidnap women, worship a giant snake statue and regularly hire prostitutes from the nearby town.

On the DVD special features, there’s an interview with Jackie Chan where he talks about the finale. He talks about how most action movies he was used to doing had a standard 1 vs 1 fight between the hero and the villain, and that he was getting tired of that so he wanted to do something different. Thus the finale has Jackie duke it out with four black women with Amazonian physiques. It’s an absolutely bizarre battle in the cavernous depths of the cult’s hideout, and the women simply don’t mesh well visually or conceptually with anything else that’s been going on in. But that’s largely true of the whole movie, it’s a lot of fun and a good time, but it’s so weird as well. This is one of the good ones, which is something I feel I say a lot about Chan movies.

Tai Chi Zero/Hero

Tai Chi Zero and Tai Chi Hero are a pair of Chinese martial art movies that mix stylistic visuals with comedy and action. I have to review these together because they sort of act as two parts of a somewhat cohesive whole. They’re fun and both stylistically and visually appealing (a mix of traditional 19^th century Chinese villages and steampunk robots), though the story in both is a bit unfocused and weak.  They were filmed back to back, and it sort of shows with the costumes and sets. It also shows as they feel like two halves of a whole movie. So let’s begin with the first film, Tai Chi Zero.

Lu Chan is a once-in-a-century martial arts prodigy, possessing the ability to perfectly mimic moves and form. He also has a growth on his head, the ‘Three Blossoms on the Crown’, which, when struck, causes him to go into a powerful berserker rage. Orphaned as a child, the innocent and simple Lu Chan is taken in by the leader of a rebel army who exploits Lu Chan’s abilities to win battles. The strain of fighting has serious health effects though, and a doctor informs Lu Chan that he is dying – the only thing that can save him is to learn Chen style kung-fu to heal his body from the inside.

So Lu Chan travels to the isolated Chen village, only for the townsfolk to kick him out and refuse to teach him – Chen style kung-fu isn’t taught to strangers, it’s kept in the family. Lu Chan refuses to give up, and loiters around the village, getting regularly pummelled by the villagers as he concocts various plans to sneak in. His enthusiasm and determination gets the attention of Yu Niang, the daughter of Master Chen, who is dealing with her own problems. Yu Niang’s ambitious fiancé Fang, who works for a British railway company and has adopted western culture, wants to build a railway through Chen village – it’s his big chance to prove himself to his western bosses. The simple townsfolk aren’t impressed by his western technology and refuse. Fang decides to do it anyway and returns, bringing with him a battalion of armed British soldier and a giant railway-laying steam-powered robot to destroy the village. Thus Lu Chan has his chance to prove himself by foiling Fang’s plan and fighting off the soldiers.

The pace is pretty decent, though it takes its time to get where it’s going. It takes a long time before the main conflict shows up, with the first half mostly being to set up Lu Chan’s backstory and arrival at Chen village. As a result, it feels more like the first half of a movie than a satisfying whole. It does have a beginning, middle and end and mostly stands on its own, if it weren’t for the ending scene that links it directly to its sequel. It’s a bit all over the place with odd detours. There are a weird series of scenes with Fang and his British associate/lover Claire that are just strange. It goes for emotional romance…for the villains. Meanwhile the movie is framing things for Lu Chan and Yu Niang to start a relationship, though the two lack chemistry. There’s also only basic characterisation for the most part.

The problem with Tai Chi Zero is that it leaves you feeling oddly unsatisfied and hungry for more; just as it builds up the movie ends. It’s the first course of a two-course meal, leaving you hungry for more. And that leads us to course two…

 

It’s hard to really talk about Tai Chi Hero without spoiling the end of the first film/part one, but here’s the easy, basic way – the good guys won, but with consequences. Lu Chan is awkwardly married to Yu Niang, though only formally so he can learn Chen style kung-fu (although they do have some feelings for each other). His training begins to fuel the paranoia of the villagers, who fear a prophecy made by a monk centuries before that if an outsider learns Chen-style kung-fu the village will be destroyed. Thus Lu Chan has become a pariah and the villagers want to be rid of him. This coincides with the arrival of Master Chen’s son (and Yu Niang’s brother) Zai Yang and his wife. Zai Yang’s presence, popular, talented and intelligent, fuels the villager’s determination to be rid of Lu Chan, and begins rumblings of a power struggle between Zai Yang and Master Chen. Meanwhile Fang, furious at his defeat and wanting revenge, teams up with sinister American Duke Fleming (Peter Stormare, what are you doing here?) to bribe various officials and get access to an army and artillery to finally destroy Chen village.

Tai Chi Hero is entertaining, but shares the same issues with pacing and story. If anything it comes across as looser and less cohesive – there are a lot of plot threads loosely stitched together with minimal depth and unclear focus. Everything about Fang’s wheelings and dealings and every single Peter Stormare scene feels out of place and strange, while the movie has to contrive the whole ‘cursed prophecy’ thing to have the villagers suddenly hate Lu Chan again.   

 

Lu Chan basically becomes a secondary character as the story suddenly starts to focus on Zai Yang. Zai Yang gets a whole lot of backstory, character development and drama – his relationship with his father is an important thread in the middle of the story. He actually gets given more depth in a few brief scenes than Lu Chan has had over two movies, so maybe that’s why they did it. To be honest it just sort of shines more light on the fact that Lu Chan isn’t a particularly interesting character (or a particularly talented actor). Even in the first film he had nothing going on other than his combat skills, and here he’s given barely any attention barring the few fight scenes. Everything about Lu Chan’s ‘Three Blossoms on the Crown’ is quickly and quietly swept away. It gets brought up in the first third of the movie, and then it’s gone completely and never mentioned again.

Tai Chi Hero suffers from an oddly defused ending that quickly, strangely wraps things up in a little bit too nice of a bow. The big climactic battle begins and is entertaining, but ends up ignored as the heroes circumvent it entirely by engaging in a really strange and not-quite ‘final fight’ worthy solo match with a character we’ve never heard of who is only introduced in the final ten minutes and then everything is solved. To risk spoiling it outright, imagine it this way: if Tai Chi Zero was about a bullied kid fighting back against his bully, Tai Chi Hero is about a bullied kid running away from his bully and then complaining to the principal who makes everything all right. The bullying thing is only an example, but an apt one – Tai Chi Zero/Hero and a lot of kung-fu movies were exactly about this sort of thing, the big and powerful trying to strongarm the small and vulnerable (only with more kung-fu). It just leaves Tai Chi Hero ending on a somewhat muted note. Things are wrapped up so suddenly and quickly that there’s no time for an epilogue or resolution.

 

The two movies vaguely come together into an odd whole of sorts, though I’d say the second film is the weaker due to its looser structure and focus. They’re still an entertaining duo; they just don’t quite come together into a solid whole. The first feels like build up and ends before it gets there, and the second just doesn’t quite sit well on its own. Tai Chi Hero’s ending feels strange in its odd detour and sudden rush to wrap things up, though I’d heard they’re making a third film.

A little bit of miscellany – something I haven’t mentioned much is the acting. Well it’s a mixed bag really – a lot of the supporting cast and side roles are quite decent. The movie is jam packed with real-life martial artists and Olympians as well as known actors. Yu Niang is played by actress/model Angelababy and Master Chen is played by Tony Leung Ka-Fai and both give good performances. Yuen Biao shows up for the final fight in Tai Chi Hero, and Peter Stormare stands around in a dapper suit being sinister in a few scenes. The big weak point is Jayden Yuan, who plays main character Lu Chan. He’s a martial artist/athlete and this is his acting debut, and it shows. His acting is poor, but works enough as the simple, well-meaning and determined Lu Chan. I feel that this is why he gets mostly brushed aside in the sequel – he isn’t a particularly compelling character.

The action in both films is a lot of fun actually. It isn’t particularly impactful but the choreography has a nice flow and it looks good. It’s all elevated by stylistic flourishes which make things visually entertaining. Things like lines appearing that map out movements and kicks and slow motion or CGI for spears being smashed make the action seem more interesting than it is. Talking about visuals, the films both look great, with excellent sets and costumes and CGI used to detail bigger, more extravagant sets. The movies were apparently released in 3D in China, which explains some of the CGI effect.

In the end the movies are both pretty entertaining. They have their faults, mostly in story, structure and characterisation, but I’d argue the movies manage to mostly make up for them through style and visuals. They’re worth watching, though you’ll have to watch both to get the most out of