Bodyguards & Assassins (2009)

Today I didn't get much choice for my movie since I was at a friend's place and I could only choose what was available. There were a lot Chinese movies to pick from and I figured it was time to see another. Today I picked Bodyguards and Assassins. This is a story about the Chinese revolution against the Qing Dynasty. Seeing as it's set in 1906, I thought it would be interesting to see the mix of cultures as this is when Hong Kong is under British rule. Well I may as well get into the review, so I'll see you after the jump!


A revolutionary is heading to Hong Kong to organize all the various factions and groups into a co-ordinated offensive. His name is Sun Wen and they know that there will be plenty of people trying to kill him while he's briefly in the city. It's up to those wanting revolution and freedom from the Qing Dynasty to come up with a plan to keep him safe.

Some great action from actor Donnie Yen

While the story was interesting enough, the pacing was unfortunately very slow. Extremely slow in fact. The movie is 2 hours and 20 minutes long, and there is almost no action until about the last 30 minutes of the movie, save for one short scene early in the film. However, when the action starts happening, it almost makes up for the whole movie.

There are tons of characters and the movie is spends time introducing them, but only enough so you have a rough idea about them and that you can recognize them later in the final action scene. Most of the time is spent with the relationship between the leader of the local revolutionaries and the owner of a newspaper who is helping him and his relationship with his own son. He doesn't want the son involved but the son can't help but want to help his country. To be honest, I didn't find it all that interesting and I was pretty bored for most of the film.

More action, all in the last half hour

I don't want to spend much more time talking about this movie. It just went on forever and was just a bunch of talking and plotting and a cast that was simply too large to allow you to care about many of them. And the ones they spent the most time with, I didn't care about anyways. If you're really into foreign films and are a fan of history or have curiosity about Chinese history, maybe this will be something you'll find interesting. The production values are certainly high enough that it looks good. Let's not forget that the action and martial arts at the end are pretty amazing and great. Overall though, it's a pretty difficult movie to actually recommend to anyone though.