In the prologue to THE INVINCIBLE ARMOR, we're told that "Iron Armor is the most mysterious of all kung fu techniques." The only flaw: there's ALWAYS one vulnerable point- "the breath gate." The Eagle Claw is another deadly technique. General Chow (John Liu) sees Hu Loong (Hoi) fight off several attackers and is impressed enough to introduce Loong to Mr. Lu, who's "looking for suitable warriors" to aid him in his political aims. During a friendly sparring match, Loong kills Lu and leaves Chow to be caught literally red-handed over the body. Chow escapes the authorities, being careful not to injure his pursuers. Shen Yu is summoned to capture Chow; Chow, meanwhile, uses his superior skills to fend off pretty much everyone he runs into (Liu is an excellent kicker, and some of the fight scenes are great because of this). He catches up to Hu, but Shen and Minister Cheng interfere and Hu escapes. Chow befriends a boy and his sister, the beautiful Shi Lan, and the boy teaches Chow the Iron Armor technique- and the Iron Finger technique, to overcome it. When Shen talks Chow into surrendering, Che Yuan shows up. He wants to behead Chow because "his head is easier to carry." (Makes sense to me...) When we finally see the robotic, stiff-legged advance of Minister Cheng (employing the Iron Armor technique), it's a genuinely scary moment: he actually LOOKS invincible. INVINCIBLE ARMOR is most definitely worth a look.

This is the Longest Day of Kung Fu movies with Ng See Yuen using some of the top stars of the time in a film that obviously had some money spent on it - the costumes and (Korean) sets are really rather good. He seems to have been trying to recreate the success of his Secret Rivals with stars Hwang Jang Lee, Philip Ko and John Liu all appearing and Tino Wong in a major role. This is helped by Yuen Biao doing many of the stunts and appearing in a (short) fight. Unfortunately the story isn't bad but not brilliant (with rather a cowboy type theme) and John Liu though a brilliant fighter thinks acting consists of a slow smile and a nice character. Tino Wong does his best but is not an absolute top notch fighter and the brilliant Hwang Jang Lee does little kicking, though much protection of his private parts, using Eagle Claw techniques. Philip Ko is heavily disguised but very good as the brother of Hwang, but their fight is rather constrained and doesn't really show their abilities. The final fight against Hwang by John Liu and Tino Wong is reasonable but not outstanding. Watch for the story and the reasonable fights but this could have been better and somehow (like the Longest Day) the sum of the parts doesn't quite add up to a first rate film.

Those elaborate, Shaw Brothers-style period costumes just don't work against a Poverty Row background like the one we see in "Invincible Armor", but hell...why quibble? Hwang Jang Lee and John Liu, two of the top three kickers in the business (the third being Delon Tam, Liu's instructor), tear up the screen in this film and that's what counts. My only complaint about the fight scenes is that there were too many distracting, split-second shots of shattered eggs every time someone attacked what they thought was Hwang's vulnerable point (his testicles, naturally). Just concentrate on the action, guys, please! Otherwise, this is a fun, straightforward flick that you'll enjoy if Hong Kong kung fu cinema is your thing.

I searched hard on IMDb for this film since it is not primarily listed by it's English name: "Invincible Armor". I work at a video store and was in the mood for a kung-fu movie. I had only seen one kung-fu movie before (Shaolin vs. Lama) and it was pretty cool, so I picked up this one. It was great from the start. They're were some pretty cool training scenes for "eagle claw" and "iron armor" techniques, these scenes made for a great intro to the film. What I found to be the coolest thing of all is that some of the dialogue from the movie is sampled on one of the rap group "Wu-Tang Clan"'s albums. The finale is great too. There is a groin joke in the final fight that I won't reveal. Very funny! All in all a great king-fu flick.