Bodyguard from Beijing
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Jet Li, Ngai Sing

Jet Li is the only bodyguard from Beijing. His mission is to protect a witness, Michelle Yeung, to a murder in order to allow her to stand as a witness to the crime. The men who took place in the murder try to kill Michelle, as does Ngai Sing, who takes the role of a man who seeks to avenge his brother's death due to Ching's (Li) protection of the witness.

I bought this movie hoping for something more in the action department. Really, all it is is a drama until the last 20 minutes. Here and there are some chases or a few gun fights, maybe Jet Li beating up a crowd, but overall the action is almost non-existant on the first cd (video cd version). But the actors all do a decent job of acting, and the plot is somewhat interesting. The whole thing takes place at one house with the exception of maybe 20 minutes that take us into a shopping mall or a police station. Good thing the house fit the mood of the movie, though. But still, I wasn't too impressed with this movie, even though the acting and plot were above average. Oh and the subtitles were impossible to read at times. White background with white subtitles don't work together.

Li doesn't do much in the way of martial arts. Lots of his movement consist of gun play and hardly any hand movements except for at the end against Ngai Sing, which brings about my other complaint. Ngai Sing looks to be a capable villian, as we saw in My Father is a Hero (The Enforcer), but they put him on wires for most of the fighting and that ruined it pretty well for me. And these weren't good wire effects either, but obvious ones where they put one foot on the counter and push off across the room that way. BS. I can think of maybe 3 small (very small) moments where the two had a good bout without wires, and that was the high point for me. That's sad.



Plot and acting good, but action bad. I fear that Jet Li's potential won't be tapped again for some time. This is a recent movie and I expected some flashy action but there was hardly any. If they wanted to do an all-gun movie (where it's not common to have people pull guns one after the other when Jet Li turns to face them) then they should have done it like Hitman. But this isn't good enough. Jet Li plays Invincible Li again, which probably isn't his fault but instead someone who really thinks that's the way he is, and his talent is nearly wasted. So is Ngai Sing's. Really, really too bad.

For that reason I give it a 5/10, which comes across to me as "average".

UPDATE 10/9 - Rating System Change

2/5 - For me, no worthwhile action besides the intense scene at the end. Environment is too limited.

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