My Beloved Bodyguard

[Drunk Monk]

This is the new Sammo Hung. Luved it. Sammo has always had a surpring style of filmmaking and storytelling. This is sammo's update. It's stylish, almost artsy, irreverent, and cinematographically engaging. Some beautiful moments - fresh and funny. And brutal. It's probably too long a wait for the few fights, but the big fight delivers like only Sammo can. Big falls from great angles. CGI X-Ray vision to illustrate to bone breaks. It's only a few moves per shot but the action is tight and Sammo still has great hands. Sanguinous. No sword fight but lots of knife fights. Lots of cool cameos too - Tsui Hark, Karl Maka, and maybe all of the 7 fortunes except Jackie. 

Sammo is an ex-super-bodyguard with Alzheimer's. Andy Lau is a bad dad of a super cute urchin. He runs afoul of a gang starting a turf war on the Russian/Chinese border. It's a simple idea but well executed. 

I should confess that I'm a big fan of Sammo and am probably really biased.

[Drunk Monk]

I'm posting this on this thread because both films are from this year and surreptitiously titled Bodyguard. There's some variation in some of the English titles (beloved/super) but these might shift. I must check if the Chinese titles are the same....later.

This is the 2nd film written & starring Yue Song (see http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...p?tid=2976). It costars Shi Yanneng who I knew from my early Shaolin years. Like Song's 1st film, there is a threadbare plot and a lot of action. Bodyguard protects hottie, and an evil gang wants her to get at her dad - actually there's a lot more intrigue because the adversaries are martial brothers (Song is iron legs ala Idle in Munchausen/Yanneng is iron fist ala Iron Fist et.al.) and there's more but it never interrupts the steady flow of fight scenes. The choreography is much stronger - good wire work, some major falls, some stunts and some preposterous fights. Yue takes on double hatchets, a giant, a gang of like 50+ baton & ratchet wielded, a cute double dagger villianess, a dude with a horse-cutting lance, and of course, Yanneng. It's superhero fightin' where people get kicked through concrete walls - quite tongue-in-cheek, with echoes of Shaolin Soccer silliness. Very entertaining as long as you park your brain outside. VERY DOOM.

[Drunk Monk]

Rewatched Sammo's Bodyguard. Such an odd film, so sentimental, so sanguinuous, so Sammo. Obviously o enjoyed it enough for a second helping and was satisfied. I caught more of the inside cameos this time.