Since I have already reviewed this film once before, I have decided to amend my old one and insert some of my new reactions on the film, adding in things that I may have missed while also including my review of the bonus features.
Bodyguards and Assassins (Shi yue wei cheng), the winner of eight awards at the 29th Annual Hong Kong Film Awards two days ago, is not your average Hong Kong period blockbuster. The film stars the amazing Donnie Yen, Nicholas Tse, Leon Lai, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, and Wang Xueqi; it 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 a watch.
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 of the Qing dynasty. The story follows a group of civilians who set out on their own to prepare for Mr. Sen’s arrival and the process they go through to keep him alive upon that arrival.
Since this was the third or fourth time I have seen this film, I knew exactly what I was getting into. But for those of you who have never seen it, I can tell you that the first half of the film is a straight up drama that moves at a deliberately slow pace. It’s about the three days before Sun Yet Sen’s arrival so all we really get is a lot of preparation and a significant amount of character development, which is important for any film. While the first half is a bit boring, the second half, the day of Sen’s arrival, is when the pace begins to pick up and things get interesting. When you realize how the day’s events are going to unfold, you begin to anticipate the action, eagerly waiting to see the various fight scenes featuring Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, Jun Hu and Cung Le.
At the end of the second act and beginning of the third, this movie became everything I had wanted it to be. There was terrific martial arts choreography, an amazing score, and some solid 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 American fighter Cung Le. Even after multiple screenings I still yell “HOLY SHIT!!!!” at the appropriate 
moment. After that my eyes never averted the screen. The weapons the assassins used were very interesting and balanced out the amazing martial arts styles of the good guys . 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 flesh. It sounds painful because it is, they just messed people up. Another aspect of the martial arts scenes that I really liked was the limited usage of wire work fighting (Wu Xia style), it made it more realistic when it came to moving around the set.
While the movie itself was pretty good, I won’t say it is the best Hong Kong film I have seen. 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 final act, aka the hour long battle. 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 like the name of it, are into Asian films, or enjoy watching any of the actors.
Film Rating: A somewhat engaging Chinese action/drama that will mesmerize you in the final 45 minutes (6/10)
Bonus Features: When it comes to the actual DVD and the content on it, I will say that despite its limits, it has some great videos. There are five behind the scenes featurettes that deal with the story, the characters, the set, the makeup and the action. We get to hear some commentary from Peter Chan, Teddy Chan, Donnie Yen and more. The ones that I liked the most were the character studies and the set piece featurettes. I didn’t know that the entire set was build from scratch. These guys rebuilt central Hong Kong from 1905. It looked so authentic and the set took over a year to build. Knowing this makes the film that much better, that everything was built specifically to make this revolutionary tale about unsung heroes come to life. They even have videos that are played at ultra high speeds so you can see the development of it. In case you didn’t know, the Chinese don’t mess around.
As for the character featurette, I thought that was great because you get the opportunity to learn a little bit more about each actor/actress, their thoughts on their character, and you find out even more about the history of each one. It was very long and kind of in-depth but it was worth it since you get some commentary from each of the main characters (I think ten of them spoke).
The extended interviews with five of the cast and crew members weren’t anything special. I didn’t get much information out of them because if you watch the featurettes, they practically show most of the same stuff. Plus, the extended versions aren’t that much longer.
In addition to the interviews and featurettes, you can also watch the international trailer or view more content online. I don’t have a smart phone so I couldn’t read the QR code but I can’t imagine how much more content will be on the net.
DVD Review: 6/10
Bodyguards and Assassins is being released by Indomina Releasing and will hit the shelves on July 26.
Recent Comments