Good start, but then it gets ruined

Excellent, a Must See

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The first few minutes of "The Bodyguard" do have a campy charm: it opens with crawling text from the Bible (the part that Samuel Jackson recites to his soon-to-be victims in "Pulp Fiction"), continues with two karate school teachers in New York arguing about the eternal question of mankind (who is better? Sonny Chiba or Bruce Lee?), and then Chiba appears, playing himself; he immediately stops a plane hijacking and breaks a bottle in two with his bare hand. Unfortunately, any entertainment value, intentional or unintentional, soon gets crushed by the disjointed story, the lack of action for long periods of time, and the poor quality of any present action. To keep it simple, here's why "The Bodyguard" is an unbearable movie to watch:1) You don't know what's going on. 2) There are barely any fights. 3) The fights that are there, are short and terribly filmed.Sonny Chiba is cool. Judy Lee is gorgeous, her face is glorious. It's only for them that I give "The Bodyguard" a 2nd star out of 10. This movie makes 87 minutes feel like 5 hours.

The best thing you can say about this movie is that if you are a fan of Sonny Chiba, this movie gives you lots of him. Chiba makes speeches; Chiba poses; Chiba sneers; Chiba glares at the camera; Chiba punches and kicks the living sushi out of a whole bunch of bad guys; Chiba sits around on couches and chairs and looks thoughtful/pensive; Chiba drives his car...I enjoy Chiba as an actor and a martial artist...but even for a Chiba fan, this movie may have a little too much Sonny Chiba. It's obviously something of a vanity vehicle for him. And no, I wouldn't put "Street Fighter" in the same category, because in "SF" he plays a ruthless, amoral anti-hero and he shares the camera with an intriguing cast of friends and foes. Here, he's front and center almost all the time, and he tries to be Batman, Captain America and Bruce Lee rolled into one. Toshiro Mifune and Chow Yun Fat couldn't pull this off for the length of an entire feature film, and Sonny just kind of wears out his welcome. At least he could have changed out of his suit once in a while.The movie is further messed up by an entirely gratuitous and badly done introductory sequence (apparently tacked on to the front of the film for the American version) and a goofy cheer "("Viva!! Chiba!! Viva!! Chiba!!) that starts things on the wrong foot. There is some astoundingly amateurish and inappropriate dubbing - Sonny (or his usual English stand-in) apparently couldn't be bothered to do the vocals for the American version, so they got some poor dope with an entirely different and smoother voice and dialect that is quite jarring coming from the face we all know and love from "Street Fighter". Even with all those flaws and the overexposure, this could still be a minor classic, but the camera work and the fight scenes are hopelessly cheesy. I'm willing to believe that Karate actually works if someone as amazing as Chiba's character is supposed to be does it, but the director and cameraman hedged their bets by chopping and editing fight scenes with a weed whacker so you can't really see what's going on most of the time. It's not all bad: there are some decent shots and compositions, and there's at least one memorable and nightmarish moment when the bad guys appear in the client's bedroom in a genuinely inventive way. And as for the actual plot...forget it. For a "bodyguard", Chiba's character is something of an idiot. The screenplay depends on his making mistakes and oversights that repeatedly place him (and his "client") in perilous situations so he can fight his way out of them, and after 30 minutes, it strains even the most credulous judgment to think that this guy is supposed to be any good. (Also, If his character was really out to destroy the Japanese drug trade, he'd have taken his client by her neck 10 minutes into the screenplay and shaken her until her teeth chattered like a castanet until she spilled her little secrets...and a whole lot of pointless death and conflict would have been avoided.) Still, as a whole this movie is a long way from the bottom of the barrel. It's still Sonny Chiba, and he's still fun to watch. I paid a buck to get this off the bargain DVD rack at a local mega mart, and I feel it was worth watching once.

Before I begin, you need to know that I am a huge fan of many of Sonny Chiba's films. His biographical series of the life of his master, Mas Oyama, were amazing and among the best martial arts films ever made, as were most of his Street Fighter films. The action was practically non-stop and with the possible exception of Bruce Lee (depending on who you ask), he was the greatest martial arts practitioner on film during the 1970s. Because they are so good, I've seen at least 15 of his films and recently bought some more (which I am in the process of watching).Unfortunately, despite my love of these films, I am NOT a mind-numbed zombie who worships the man to such a degree that I rate EVERY film a 10. There are a few reviews like this here on IMDb and I truly think that anyone giving this film a 10 should be ignored because this is such a bad film from a technical standpoint and isn't even close to the being Chiba's best work. A score of 10 isn't a real rating--it's some zombie fan trying to make a statement about Chiba, not this film! As I said, technically this film is awful. Some of this was the result of my seeing the American dubbed version, with its irrelevant prologue and bad dubbing. But most of the problem would still exist with the original Japanese print. The camera-work is simply atrocious--like it was done by chimps (smart chimps, but still chimps nonetheless). Often, much of the fast martial arts action is missed because the camera is so slow or the tops of the actors heads are clipped off due to the shoddiness of production. And, again and again, the camera pans in and out like it is a new toy being used by an idiot plus the editing is beyond wretched--with cuts being done haphazardly and confusingly.I don't know whether the musical score is original or not--but it was also very, very bad. Sort of like acid rock of 1970 blended poorly with Ennio Morricone's "Spaghetti Western" music--it was annoying, distracting and just plain silly.As for the martial arts action, I think that having chimps do the choreography would have improved things a bit. Instead of the great fight scenes you'd look forward to in a Chiba film, the fights are too brief and often missed by the camera!! So what you are left with is the story...and this MIGHT just be the worst part of the film! It's supposed to be an anti-drug film starring Sonny Chiba as....Sonny Chiba! And when the film begins, he vows to destroy the drug trade in Japan. But, the Mafia (complete with not a single member who looks Italian, but who are ALL Japanese) vows to stop Chiba. And, when a lady comes to Chiba with promises to give him information about how to destroy the drug trade, he agrees to help her and risk his life with no conditions--even though she's NEVER forthright about telling him what she knows! In fact, later it turns out she is just trying to use Chiba to protect her while she herself sells a huge briefcase full of cocaine--and he CONTINUES trying to protect her!! This makes no sense at all and throughout much of the film it looks as if they just shot the film without a script--such as when they went into the bars and brothels and had Chiba walking about as if he was drunk.So if it was THAT bad, why still does it merit a 3? Well, first, there are many more horrid marital arts films (such as many of those from Hong Kong in the 1970s)--including one with guys dressed up in gorilla suits doing kung fu and their handlers with 3 foot long tongues they used for fighting (now THAT'S bad). Second, while the action is very bad compared to other Sonny Chiba films, compared to its contemporaries, it's not that bad. Still, you could easily do a lot better than this horrid little film.By the way, if you are wondering if this is the worst Sonny Chiba film, it certainly is not! In one of his first films, INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN, Chiba plays a leotard-wearing super-hero who battles pointy-headed invaders from the planet Neptune. It's so bad that it rivals PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN for awfulness.A final note to parents--Like most of Sonny Chiba's films, this one is very violent and has its share of boobies. DON'T let little kids watch this no matter how much they beg! Make them wait until they are older before you let them watch wretched rated-R martial arts films!

After watching "The Bodyguard" last night, I felt compelled to write a review of it.This could have been a pretty decent movie had it not been for the awful camera-work. It was beyond annoying. The angles were all wrong, it was impossible to see anything, especially during the fight sequences. The closeups were even horrible.The story has Sonny Chiba hiring himself out as a bodyguard to anyone willing to lead him to the top of a drug ring. He is approached by Judy Lee, who is never quite straight with Chiba. Lee's involvement in the drug ring is deeper than Chiba thought, as the Mob and another gang of thugs are after her.The story was decent, and despite horrible dubbing, this could have been a good movie. Given better direction and editing, I'm sure this would have been a classic Kung Foo movie. As it is, it's more like another cheesy 70's action movie.Note: The opening sequence has a quote familiar to "Pulp Fiction" fans, and then continues to a karate school in Times Square that is in no way related to the rest of the movie.Rating: 4 out of 10