'Condor': It's a Kick

Hong Kong's wee-man Jackie Chan delivers the usual combination of kung pow (hold the chicken) and moo goo guy panache in "Operation Condor," a laughably dubbed, awkwardly plotted variation on "Raiders of the Lost Ark." The yarn combines acrobatics and martial artistry with slapstick derring-do.

Chan, who also co-wrote and directed this slight comic adventure, plays Condor, a resourceful secret agent who receives a perilous assignment for the United Nations. His mission: to prevent international terrorists from making off with 240 tons in gold stolen by the Nazis and buried in the Sahara during World War II.

Condor, whom everybody calls Jackie, winds up with three traveling groupies: Carol Cheng as his nominal boss, Eva Cobo de Garcia as the granddaughter of the officer in charge of hiding the gold, and Shoko Ikeda as a moony Japanese hitchhiker they meet on the road to Morocco. You keep expecting them to sing backup, but they're like the date palms, mainly scenery.

Initially pursued only by a pair of dotty Islamic extremists, Jackie and his all-girl entourage kick the falafel out of a band of Bedouin slave traders, a tribe of African cave dwellers and band of mystery men in black cars. All this and they still haven't confronted the international terrorists and their wheelchair-bound leader, Adolf (Alfred Brel Sanchez), until they have traveled three countries and finally trek deep into the dunes.

While the movie contains a series of large-scale stunts, Chan's simpler feats are easily as clever and well-crafted as the more elaborate ones. There are protracted sequences in the Nazis' sub-Saharan headquarters where armies are blown up and down a giant wind tunnel equipped with the world's biggest window fan (which may look good to Washingtonians about now).

Although Chan performs his own stunts with furious elan, his voice seems to have been dubbed by a trio composed of Prince Charles, Ray Charles and Charlie Chan. Not that dialogue -- of which "Allah be praised!" and "Jackie, help us!" are mainstays -- is crucial to this incessant circus of shootouts and chase scenes.

"Operation Condor," a sequel to 1986's "Armour of God," has been shortened 13 minutes from its Asian version, aurally enhanced and, of course, dubbed into English in hopes of attracting fans of Chan's American movies, "Supercop" and "Rumble in the Bronx." The movie was previously released with English subtitles, but audiences stayed away. Either they don't want to read subtitles, or maybe they can't.

Operation Condor is rated PG-13 for violence and brief nudity.