Bodigâdo Kiba

Ya this movie is kind of cheesy at times but I don't think it should be ripped apart like some of the other reviews. The plot is a bit thin but Sonny makes up for it as usual. As for the artsy camera work, I rather enjoyed it. The camera is shakey during running/fighting scenes but I enjoyed this. It gives the sense of a real chaotic situation instead of just situated camera work.

I do agree the dubbing is poor as hell but overall the movie worked for me and just reaffirmed Sonny Chiba as the Clint Eastwood of Japanese films.

Bad dubbing and a weird added bit make the dubbed version pretty bad, but not having seen the original, it's unfair to use that as a base for the movie. Not nearly Chiba's best in any respect.

Even if you are a die-hard Sonny Chiba fan there is no reason to see this snooze-fest. However, watch the first five minutes for a tacked-on bit shot at a Times Square dojo in the mid-'70's that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film. That sequence is so badly-acted and ludicrous that you'll wet yourself laughing! The sequence goes something like this:

CAMERA PANS UP STAIRCASE, GOES INTO DOJO.

An Hispanic martial arts guy does a pointless routine with two pair of nunchaku ("chucks") and comments to an Italian-looking karate guy "That's how Bruce Lee woulda done it!" The Italian guy says "That's pretty good, but here's how Sonny Chiba woulda done it!" He then proceeds to approximate some of Chiba's trademark moves from THE STREET FIGHTER on some poor student. After leaving the poor student hanging by his nuts, the two martial artists rub their chins and muse "I wonder what Sonny Chiba's doing now?" Then the movie lurches to a start. You may now turn off your vcr and do something useful like eat your own earwax.

For masochists. 1976's The Bodyguard is a grade Z Karate opera that gives proof that the martial arts craze of 30 years ago was just that, crazy. Unless you like to watch film stock wasted, don't buy this incompetent junk. I got it at Wally World and thought it would be a hoot. It wasn't.

What makes this stuff so mindbogglingly, stupefyingly, crushingheadachingly bad isn't that it's all of those adjectives and so much more. It's because there are folks who just can't get enough of this Kungfoolishness.

Hell, there are people in this country who collect Precious Moments figurines, too, so I guess we're all even.

Now I'm more of a Bruce Lee fan than a Sonny Chiba, but I always admired his films. The Street Fighters series is awesome, but this is one of his films I'm half in half on. Don't get me wrong it had it's moments, but it was just too fast for it's own good.

Sonny plays himself and offers himself to be a bodyguard to anyone who knows about the flood of illegal drugs. And this is where the film goes nowhere into endless action and cheap yet gruesome deaths.

If you are a die hard Chiba fan than get this, if not then my friend you are sadly in for a sour treat. A treat into weird camera angles of violence and stupid dialog that comes great for Chiba, but lame for others.