The Bodyguard from Beijing (1994)

That was an excellent one.

People are voting emotionally.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Watched the film again last night and realized how cool it is. The ending scene is one of the most brutal, brilliant and exciting action-movie scenes in general. The characters were all fun and entertaining, and often say funny things, but that might be thanks to the great voice-actors. The fighting is (mostly?) wire-free, which is just how we like it. And me having studied the art of Karate for 6 months I can say the 2 main characters both display awesome techniques.The only thing that bothered me in this movie was ---> SPOILER the bullet-time sequence which apparently this movie invented, and not Matrix. Everything else was somewhat realistic, but they went a little overboard in the very end.Buy it.

If you like Corey Yuen's balletic gunfighting, more recently demonstrated in 2002's "So Close," then you will enjoy the earlier "Bodyguard from Beijing." This film is fun to watch, and manages to produce some surprises despite the formulaic bodyguard-and-rich-bratty-girl plot. The schmaltzy sequence with the song is the only part where the movie drags. However, given Yuen's preference for gunplay, Jet Li fans are apt to be disappointed, since Li has less opportunity to showcase his kung fu skills. Christy Cheung gets the job done in the damsel-in-distress role, and to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, she plays the range of emotions from A to B.

In "The Defender", Jet Li plays an elite Army body guard whose mission is to protect a babe who is the target of a small army of bad guys. The upside of this film is a couple of fire fights which are very ordinary. The downside is the absence of just about everything we look for in action flicks: good drama, good acting, a good story, any weapon larger than a hand gun, creative martial arts (eg: Jackie Chan), stunts, car chases, pyrotechnics, and the ever popular T&A. Without the sporadic violence, this squeaky clean, low budget flick would be rated PG. A boring waste of time for all but the most diehard Jet Li fans. (C)

Considering that I felt like picking up a new Jet Li film to see some but kicking and brainless hand to hand fighting, I grabbed this title.Unfortunatly, this movie contains more gun battles (ala Chow Yun Fat but nowhere near as good), than Jet Li and company's acrobatic fighting. Thus it was a let down.The faucet fighting was interesting and even funny, considering this was something totaly unexpected in a Jet Li film for me, more on the line of say Jackie Chan.But alas I'd recommend Fist of Legend, Tai Chi Master, or even the Enforcer over this dissapointment.Rating 4 for martial arts Rating 3 for overall movie score