Jackie Chan does Indiana Jones with ARMOUR OF GOD II: OPERATION CONDOR, on Blu-ray from 88 Films.

Just settling in for a fishing trip vacation after a botched mission in the Philippines to find precious emeralds in the possession of an ancient tribe, Jackie (Chan) – aka Condor, aka Eagle, aka Asian Eagle – is summoned to Spain by the Duke Scapio (Bozidar Smiljanic, THE POPE MUST DIE) on behalf of the UN to discover the location of a German base in the African desert supposedly hoarding a cache of several tonnes of Gold; that is if Commander Ketterling and his team of eighteen men did not make off with it after mysteriously vanishing on the mission. The UN wants to get to the gold, which was stolen from several occupied countries, before the German government can make a claim on it. Jackie is accompanied by bookish desert guide Ada (Carol "Do Do" Cheng, LAST AFFAIR) who is less than pleased when Jackie tracks down the general's granddaughter Elsa (Eva Cobo, Almadovar's MATADOR) who is supposedly seeking to prove her grandfather's innocence but may be after the gold herself, along with Japanese Momoko (Shôko Ikeda) who is traveling the globe in search of spiritual enlightenment but appears to be on the same route as they. They are not the only ones looking, however, as Jackie is repeatedly accosted by a pair of Arabs (ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA chief villain Jonathan Isgar and OUTLAW BROTHERS' Daniel Mintz) and a team of murderous mercenaries hired by crippled Adolf (Aldo Sambrell, TENDER FLESH). The search for the base takes the trio to a Morrocan hotel soon decimated by machine gunfire, a white slave auction, and an African tribe whose ancient idol sits atop the entrance to the base.

With studio shooting in Hong Kong and location shooting in the Philippines, Morroco, and Spain (where Chan had previously made WHEELS ON MEALS), ARMOUR OF GOD II: OPERATION CONDOR is a bigger and better follow-up to the Indiana Jones clone ARMOUR OF GOD with more ambitious action set-pieces – including a car and motorcycle chase staged by Remy Julien's stunt driving team – and better comedy even if it still requires the three women to behave like bimbos for the most part. The underground base finale is a tour de force of action with Chan and his stunt team running across girders, scaffolding, and even being propelled intot the air by a large airplane hangar fan. As with ARMOUR OF GOD, Chan once again gravely injured himself in a stunt involving a chain, and once again the injury makes the outtake reel over the end credits. Arthur Wong's photography is as workmanlike as the direction of non-action sequences but the backdrops are often stunning, while the synth scoring of Chris Babida (THE PHANTOM LOVER) seems like the production's weakest aspect sounding rather cheap and lacking presence. 2012's CHINESE ZODIAC is considered to be the third ARMOUR OF GOD film, with Chan once again playing the "Asian Hawk" and it was supposed to be his last action film. While he has appeared in several action films as an actor since – including the regrettable SKIPTRACE – his only other directorial effort since CHINESE ZODIAC titled THE DIARY is listed as a drama.

While ARMOUR OF GOD found its way onto VHS in the United States in the 1990s in horrid quality, the more entertaining ARMOUR OF GOD II: OPERATION CONDOR went unreleased on home video while its export version was released in the UK theatrically and on VHS in its export version as OPERATION CONDOR in 1992 which was largely identical to the Hong Kong version apart from its inclusion of rear nude body double shots of Cheng in the shower that were replaced with alternate takes for a Category I all ages rating. When OPERATION CONDOR did see U.S. theatrical release, it was in 1997 following the success of the redubbed/rescored releases of RUMBLE IN THE BRONX from New Line and SUPERCOP from Dimension Films. Like Dimension's other theatrical and home video Jackie Chan titles, OPERATION CONDOR was trimmed by more than fifteen minutes, redubbed, and rescored (in this case by Stephen Endelman, a composer better known for arthouse and indie films like KEYS TO TULSA and THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL AND CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN). While it lost a lot of exposition including the introductions of Elsa and Momoko – the latter now first appearing in the desert later in the film – the cut was still entertaining and retained the nudity despite a PG-13 rating along with a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix in place of the original mono (even Hong Kong did a stereo surround remix for home video). Confusingly, ARMOUR OF GOD was released afterward in the US as OPERATION CONDOR 2: THE ARMOUR OF THE GODS.

While Dimension went some way towards restoring some of the damage they did with their Dragon Dynasty line, OPERATION CONDOR came to Buena Vista DVD in the same cut in a non-anamorphic letterboxed transfer. Anamorphic 2.35:1 and 1.78:1-cropped transfers of this cut from a new HD master showed up without accurate labeling on various Echo Bridge DVDs and Blu-rays when they outbid Lionsgate for a renewal of the Miramax catalogue. The Hong Kong cut could be found with English subtitles in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom on DVD but they were also a non-anamorphic letterboxed transfer until Hong Kong's digitally remastered DVD, the standard definition anamorphic transfer of which was the source for the 2010 upscaled Hong Kong Blu-ray and Mediumare's U.K. Paramount in Japan released the extended 113 cut in an exclusive HD master while France's HK video used the upscaled master for the Hong Kong cut while striking a new HD master for their shorter domestic cut. 88 Films' Blu-ray features a new 2K restoration of the Hong Kong cut (107:12) with the Category I cuts as well as a new 2K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative that turned out to be a version even longer than the Japanese cut, an extended version running ten minutes longer at 117:17 and including the export nudity. Apart from the aforementioned nudity, the longer cut's several little extensions during the first half of the film (including an early introductory shot of the Arabs lurking in the background of one shot) are identical to the Japanese version while the second half of the film includes some previously-unseen bits in the underground bunker.

Both 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen transfers look better than what has come before with some limitations of the original cinematography. Detail is superior in most cases to what came before in the location exteriors and studio interiors, but the newer transfer does reveal the weaknesses of the specific Technovision anamorphic lenses during location night shots and darker scenes like the opening cave sequences where they must have been shooting with the aperture wide open in some underlit shots and others where the deepest shadows flatten out (the sound stage underground base scenes look considerably better for the most part apart from a couple rough shots and some post-production optical slow motion that looks a little softer and dirtier). The Hong Kong cut comes with the original Cantonese mono mix as well as the aforementioned stereo surround mix that appeared on Hong Kong laserdisc and VHS (that Japan got the mono mix suggests that the extended cut might have been an earlier edit not yet fine-tuned since it came out only a month after the Hong Kong version and there are other cases of extended Japanese versions sometimes with scenes shot solely for them). The stereo surround mix recesses some sound effects that are too up front in the mono mix and there are some directional bits while the score has a bit of breadth rather than separation. The original export English dub is also included and reveals that Dimension Films actually did improve things with the new voicing for the most part, not only having Chan dub his own English performance and better voice actors for Cheng, Cobo, and Sambrell (on the other hand, Ikeda and the Arabs sounded even more insipid). Separate optional English subtitle tracks were included for both Cantonese tracks – the stereo track adding some offscreen voices – and a track translating some text including the title card with the English dub. The extended cut includes only the Cantonese mono track with optional English subtitles.

The Hong Kong cut is accompanied by an audio commentary by Hong Kong cinema actor/expert Mike Leeder and expert Arne Venema in which they note the ARMOUR OF GOD films as a response not only to the Indiana Jones films but also part of the booming 1985-1995 period when Chan had Golden Harvest's backing to spend eighteen months on a film and shoot all over the world – noting the travelogue quality of films like this and WHO AM I? – the "28 Club" of western actors and stuntmen who appeared in several Hong Kong action films of this period along with some other familiar faces like director Chi-Hwa Chen (DANCE OF DEATH). They also note that Mars doubled for Chan in some shots even before his injury and speculate that one of the Remy Julien team doubled in some of the chase scene in Spain, remarking that Chan himself never claimed to do all of his own stunts and attributing that claim to New Line Cinema's marketing.