Home Video Hovel: Bodyguards and Assassins
A subset of the Italian Western is what’s called “Zapata Westerns.” These films took place during the Mexican Revolution and usually depicted a lowly peasant, a European or American mercenary, and a political ideologist getting mixed up in the struggle and, though they don’t set out to do so, they become great, grand heroes of the revolution, examples of this genre are Damiano Damiani’s A Bullet for the General, Sergio Corbucci’s Compañeros, and Sergio Leone’s Duck, You Sucker. In these films, unlike many spaghetti westerns, the action, no matter how fun or spectacular, is always tempered by political struggle and the deaths the revolution is causing. Very much in the same vein as the Zapata Westerns, though made from a totally different cultural and political standpoint is Chinese director Teddy Chen’s 2009 film Bodyguards and Assassins, newly released on DVD. In it, a group of people with wildly different ideologies and social statuses band together to act as bodyguards for a powerful political revolutionary while dozens of armed assassins try their hardest to kill him.Unlike most Chinese period pieces I had seen, Bodyguards and Assassins tells the story of a very specific moment in China’s political history. The film takes place in Hong Kong in 1906, shortly after the British took power, but that’s really just the setting, as the main people involved are from mainland China. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the revolutionary behind the movement to democratize China, has been in exile in Tokyo for a number of years as China’s ruling Qing Dynasty wanted him dead at all costs. Word gets round to the people in Hong Kong that Dr. Sun is planning to return for exactly one hour under the guise of seeing his ailing mother, though really he wants to meet with 13 provincial leaders to organize a proper revolution to overthrow the Imperials. I was completely unaware of Dr. Sun until I looked him up after the film, but he is beyond a legend in China, being the only man to properly bring democracy to China, albeit very fleetingly. In fact, so little knowledge had I about this period in China’s history that when characters were discussing the possibility of a “people’s republic,” I immediately assumed it was communism they were advocating.Dr. Sun himself is only in the film a very tiny amount and most of the action follows the unconnected group of people who eventually become the bodyguards who will try to keep him safe from when he gets off the boat to when he gets back on, a single, nail-biting hour. The bulk of the film sets up these different heroes of the revolution and we see their plight, their beliefs, and what they stand to lose should they fail or get killed. The main figure is Li Yu-tang (Wang Xeuqi) the wealthy owner of the Chinese Daily Paper. While not outwardly political in anyway, Li often gives money to his friend Chen Shaobai (Tony Leung Ka-fai) who is the chief editor of the paper and underground revolutionary. When Chen is kidnapped by the Qing assassin leader, Li must make a stand to either fully aid the revolution or allow it to die.Some of the other people pulled into the revolution include a 7-foot tall tofu hawker, a young theatre girl whose father was slain by the assassins, a disgraced former leader now living as a beggar, Li’s personal rickshaw driver, and Li’s own seventeen year old son. Donnie Yen, who is perhaps the best known actor to American audiences having appeared in Zhang Yimou’s Hero, plays a down-on-his-luck policeman with a heavy gambling problem. In order to facilitate his habit, he’ll take any job that pays, which includes following local politicos for the Qings. All of them are forced to put the good of the country and the movement ahead of their own well-being and each are those that die in the course of the task are honored with an onscreen title bearing their name and birth and death dates.For being billed as an action movie, and with a title that would make one assume it is, Bodyguards and Assassins is light on the action until the last half or more. The character development and story are enough to drive the film through most of it and keep it interesting which is why it’s so jarring when the action scenes do appear. For a movie that prides itself on being historically accurate and quite realistic in its portrayal of people and events, once there’s fighting to be had, it becomes the overly choreographed, acrobatic display of bravado and style that are emblematic of these types of action movies. The film’s title, the DVD box art, and the fact that Donnie Yen’s name and picture proudly feature upon it made me think I was getting the standard Hong Kong actioner, but the film’s initial slow pace and character-driven story made me think I was in for a different kind of movie. However, the last half of the movie, while quite exciting, is, to me, only exciting in the way that you hope these people you’ve grown to like succeed and survive and not because they’re jumping over rooftops or flinging people around with their feet. These are supposed to be real people who just happen to believe in a cause and suddenly by the end they’re performing super-human feats of strength and agility which took me out of the film. With such a strong premise and opening, I’d hoped the film could rise above convention, but sadly it did not.The DVD itself is presented quite well with the picture and sound quality each being well above par. The extras on this release were few but memorable. There are five behind-the-scenes featurettes on the making of the film, each varying in length, in total running about 40 minutes. The most interesting of these involved the designing and creation of the entire Hong Kong city street set from the ground up and dressed to look just like the period in question, a remarkable feat in and of itself. Too many of these, though, focus on the actors and them being famous in China and since I didn’t know any of them, the effect was rather lost on me. Also featured are four extended interviews with members of the cast and crew which, again, only hold a modicum of interest for me since none of them were the director who I would have liked to hear more from.As a period piece depicting a particular moment in history, a moment I knew very little about, Bodyguards and Assassins is a success, but for all its attempted accuracy, the film devolves into melodrama and unrealistic fight sequences. For anyone interested in world history and politics, the ideas presented within are worth a look, and the characters are rich and interesting enough to keep you invested, just don’t expect it to be anything other than an action movie by the end.