Bodyguards and Assassins Review: Not Your Typical Hong Kong Film

Bodyguards and Assassins (Shi yue wei cheng), the winner of seven awards at the 29th Annual Hong Kong Film Awards two days ago, is not your average Hong Kong history driven action movie. The film stars the amazing Donnie Yen, Nicholas Tse, Leon Lai, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, and Wang Xueqi. The film is directed by Teddy Chan (The Accidental Spy). I will let you know right off the bat that the movie’s title is both accurate and deceiving but if you are looking for a well developed movie with great acting, directing, production quality, and a descent story then look no further because this movie is worth your time.


Bodyguards and Assassins, in its rawest form, is about the arrival of Sun Yat-sen to Hong Kong in 1905. The issue with Sun Yat-sen is that he is a revolutionary, in case you didn’t know, and is a major threat to the established Manchu rulers. The story follows a group of individuals who set out on their own to prepare for Mr. Sen’s arrival and then the process they go through to keep him alive upon that arrival.



So my first thoughts going into this movie, based simply on the title, was that it would be an action packed martial arts movie set in Hong Kong. After watching the movie I will tell you that I couldn’t have been more wrong, at least for a majority of it. The first half of the movie, although rather slow, had maybe one short fight scene from what I can remember. The whole purpose of the first hour was to prepare for the arrival of Mr. Sen and develop the characters and story which it did superbly. As I was watching I did get a bit bored because of my expectations for action and the fact that it won the HK Best Film Award. Although slightly bored, all my thoughts about the movie changed in the second hour of the movie. Not only was there a bit more preparation but it was then when the bodyguard team and plan came together and I understood exactly how everything would play out. This understanding of the story helped significantly because I was then eager to see more since I knew there would be some great action on the part of Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, and the head Assassins.

The arrival of Mr. Sen and the scenes thereafter increased my love of this movie as the story came together. At the end of the second act and beginning of the third, this movie became everything I had wanted it to be. There was amazing martial arts choreography, an amazing score, and some terrific acting. Precisely at 1 hour 36 minutes and 39 seconds, Donnie Yen performed one of the coolest martial arts moves I have ever seen against the fighter Cung Le. I literally jumped out of my bed and yelled “HOLY SHIT!!!!” and freaked my suitemates out. After that my eyes never averted the screen. The weapons the assassins used were very interesting and balanced the martial arts styles of the good guys because the weapons were so efficient and deadly. Essentially, the weapon was a like stoker for a fire place except the tips were pointed like arrows, and attached at the end were chains with a hook on the end to claw into an opponent and pull out pieces of his body. It sounds painful because it is, they just fucked people up. Another aspect of the martial arts scenes that I really liked was the limited usage of the flying jumps (15 ft. jumps) and more realistic battling when it came to moving around the set. It was nice to see a change in the fighting styles that we see in so many Chinese epics.



The last aspects of the movie that I really liked were the score and the similarities to other movies. The score was terrific, in my opinion, because it seamlessly fused traditional Chinese music and distorted guitar/rock music for the fight scenes. It was reminiscent of 300 in that it just got your blood pumping during the fights, making you want to fight alongside the bodyguards. The subplot of one of the characters, Donnie Yen specifically, reminded me of the movie Gladiator with Russell Crowe. The reason I say this is because they both have similar fantasy dreams, one’s where they are walking through the tall grass to go find their family because they just want to be with them. Now I am not saying Donnie Yen dies, but I am saying that there may be something wrong with his family.
While the movie itself was pretty good, I won’t say it is the best Hong Kong film I have seen. I would rather watch the other nominations before posing judgment and deciding if this should have won the award or not. I still need to see Red Cliff, which I hear is great. The movie definitely had some slow parts, some ridiculous scenes, and some poor editing but on the whole it was a solid movie that was brought together all in the last act. Good directing, an all-star cast, a refreshingly new story, and some sweet fight scenes, Bodyguards and Assassins is a different kind of action movie but one worth watching if you are into foreign films, any of the actors or if you like the kickass name like I do.

Rating: A somewhat engaging drama/action Chinese movie that will mesmerize you in the final 45 minutes.

Trailer: