OPERATION CONDOR
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1997 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
Rating: ** (Maltin scale)
In 1990, no longer content performing all of his own stunts, diminutive Hong Kong martial arts star Jackie Chan took another turn at co-writing and directing one of his own features, "The Armor of God II." Retitled and re-released as "Operation Condor," it's the third Jackie Chan movie to reach these shores in the past six months (following "Jackie Chan's First Strike" and the reissued "Supercop"), and it's a decision that ultimately proves you *can* have too much of a good thing.
Chan fans (Chan-atics?) can tell you that the plots of his movies are the least interesting elements. Fortunately, the plot of "Operation Condor" is a relatively simple one: Jackie battles bad guys in search of some Nazi gold. This leaves plenty of room for what makes a Jackie Chan film worth watching: lots of spirited, high-kicking action, a little low-brow comedy, and plenty of stunts. In "Operation Condor," Chan the director, recognizing his marketability as a lovable action star, gives us a globe-trotting slapstick adventure peppered with chopsocky action sequences, rather than the reverse.
Suffice it to say it's awfully silly.
There's a superfluous James Bondian pre-credit sequence in which Aboriginal-like cave dwellers with picket fences on their heads chase Jackie after he drinks their holy water. "Holy?"
There's a shoot-out in a Moroccan hotel that goes on for days, with Jackie's demure, towel-wrapped co-operative, Ada (Carol Cheng) fighting for her modesty. It's a testament to the film's lunacy that the worst thing that happens to her is that it finally comes off.
And there's a finale in an underground German munitions store that makes full use of a huge fan and some wind tunnel technical effects that grow more jaw-droppingly ridiculous by the minute. It's as if Chan's goofy grin isn't enough; he had to subject it to some face-changing G-forces as well.
Still, the stunts and set pieces, no matter how exhausting, are pretty amazing as usual. Chan rides a motorcycle like it's an extension of himself, this time crashing through a banana warehouse in an attempt to out-maneuver his adversaries. The culminating stunt, when he leaps from the harbor-bound cycle onto a bale of cargo being loaded onto a ship, is almost lost in the mayhem. Fortunately Chan photographs it from two different angles, and leaves both shots in the film! With the agility of a springbok, Chan traverses a 10-foot high wall with an effortless, Z-shaped leap, yet the customary end-credit outtakes illustrate just how difficult it is to nail the landing. And to be fair, there are some very funny bits in and among the frenetic fisticuffs, as when Jackie batters a bad guy who is holding Ada in front of him as a shield.
The obligatory babe role is played by not one, but three!, winsome charmers. The aforementioned Ada. A Brigitte Nielsen-styled blonde (Eva Cobo DeGarcia), who happens to be the grand-daughter of the German officer who buried the hoard of bullion at the end of the war. And a dum-dum with a pet scorpion called Ding Ding, played by a squeaky Shoko Ikeda. By the time these bubbleheads form an alliance and start beating up on the doltish opposition, it's like watching a female version of the Three Stooges.
The film's reworked title, by the way, is every bit as meaningless as the plot. Ada very briefly refers to Jackie as "Condor" during the mission's initial setup--blink and you'll miss it--but for all the thought that went into that decision the movie could have gone by "Operation White-Throated Grebe." In "Operation Condor," as it turned out, Jackie's motto is "Expect the worst. Hope for the best." While this principle holds true for almost any Jackie Chan movie, his latest effort falls precariously somewhere in between.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@mail.med.upenn.edu
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