The Defender

Bodyguard from Beijing is a HK remake of Hollywood's The Bodyguard starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner. But HK's version is quite different and a whole lot better. First of all, the relationship between the two stars of the movie (Jet Li and Christy Chung) has more tension and is more believable. And the action is incomparable. The shopping mall scene and especially the end fighting scene are simply too awesome to describe. You have to see it for yourself. Albeit the fact that there are some melodramatic scenes, this movie is a must for any Jet Li fan or wushu/action fan.

an exciting love story with everything going for it. the humor, the action, the romance, all great. could have used some more of the great action, though. Jet Li is terrific as the bodyguard from Bejing. The last fight, the faucet fight, is really cool. check this one out.

This is most commonly noted to be a HK version of 'THe bodyguard' by Kevin Costner, so generally the plot is the same, bodyguard protects rich missus. I think what makes this more entertaining has to be Jet Li himself, who I am a personal fan of. Here he exudes silent charm and charisma that makes his character very 'cool

and aloof at the same time. In the first half of the show, Christy's character hates him, not surprisingly since he is such a pain in her a**. But later on we see the softer side of him when he begins to like Christy's character too. He's character is very shy and uncertain when it comes to dealing with romance, a far cry from the confident and arrogant nature when it comes to his job. Jet Li plays the contrasting natures of the character with ease, you almost feel quite tickled watching Christy's character flirt with him. Overall, not a brilliant show, plot not original at all, but with the entertaining supporting casts as well as Jet Li's presence, makes the show a highly enjoyable one.

BODYGUARD FROM BEIJING is, surprise, surprise, a Chinese remake of the Kevin Costner-starring Hollywood hit THE BODYGUARD. I had the misfortune to watch the Americanised version of this, entitled THE DEFENDER, which substitutes the original dialogue with some really bad dubbing, but nevertheless I enjoyed the film as an efficient action thriller of the kind popular during the 1990s in Hong Kong. This one mixes the kind of gunplay familiar from John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat movies with more traditional martial arts mayhem courtesy of Jet Li. The plot is lightweight and slim and the romantic scenes are more annoying than touching, but nevertheless this is a film that delivers in the action stakes, providing solid, reliable fare.

Director Corey Yuen is a dab hand at crafting beautiful action sequences and the choreography is top-notch here as usual. There's a massive shoot-out in a shopping mall at around the halfway mark which doesn't disappoint and an excellent climax using all kinds of props in a gas-filled house that does well to avoid the usual clichés. Some dodgy looking wirework pops up here and there but doesn't spoil the otherwise engaging action. I also liked the hard edge in the fights; Li disposes of his enemies in a violent way and yet that violence is never gratuitous or dwelt upon too much.

In the titular role, Li is as fine as ever, still looking as young as he did in THE MASTER and playing the kind of ruthless, incorruptible figure that crops up time and again in his career. He's a tour de force in the fight scenes and good in the acting stakes too. Unfortunately, Christy Chung is intensely irritating as his ungrateful charge, but support from the likes of Kent Cheng (CRIME STORY) and Collin Chou (FLASH POINT) help to soften her presence and to be fair she does get less annoying as the film progresses. I wouldn't call BODYGUARD FROM BEIJING a masterpiece, but it is a dependable thriller that ably does what it sets out to do: entertain.

The first thing you will notice about this Hong Kong version of 'The Bodyguard' is the incredibly awful dubbing. I've seen badly dubbed films before, but never anything quite like this. It's so bad, in fact, that it almost seems like someone hired voice actors that were nothing like the actor that they were dubbing out of spite. Maybe the director, or Jet Li annoyed the man in charge of voice actor casting, and he thought he'd get his own back. Perhaps the director requested terrible dubbing to give the film a seemingly unintentional comedy element? Whatever the reason; the dubbing in this film is poor. Very poor indeed.

Incredibly awful dubbing aside (and it is awful, make no mistake), the film does feature some nice moments. The story follows that of a young girl who is one of three witnesses to a murder. The other two have been killed in "accidents", so the girl's rich boyfriend hires her a bodyguard (complete with terrible dubbing) to protect her. Naturally, the two gradually fall in love as the film progresses. As I said, despite it's awful dubbing; the film does feature some nice moments. One of which involves an assassin taking out several guards with a bayonet, another of which involves an awfully dubbed kid exchanging his pretend gun with a police officer's, with hilarious comedy consequences, and naturally for a Jet Li film; there's Kung Fu, and lots of it.

The film has a rather profound element of comedy entwined within it's plot. As you know, there's an unintentional element, which is a result of the undeniably poor dubbing, and there's also an intentional element, which mostly comes from the little kid and the fat police officer. The cast on display here is nothing to write home about, and they're all poorly dubbed too. Jet Li takes the lead role, and he does fine (but nowhere near as good as he would do eight years later in the sublime 'Ying Xiong').

As I said, the dubbing in this movie is awful. Really, really bad and it does go some way to spoiling the entire thing. It's so bad that it's almost farcical, and at times it's hard to keep a straight face; which does the movie no favours in the credibility department. However, luckily for Jet Li and co; this movie is entertaining enough to just beat the awful dubbing. It's not a great film, but it is good and I recommend it to anyone that just wants to be entertained for an hour and a half. Or for anyone that wants to see proof of why subtitles are better than dubbing.