movies based on true political stories are always great source materials for epics. U have a real story featuring real people to make everything more than believable. U have the epic struggle between good and evil... difficult choices... great individual sacrifices...
in terms of stories about modern China, the story of Sun Yat Sen's uprising against the imperial system is arguably the biggest political story oh the past century... what set this story aside from other more military focus ones is the core idea of individual freedom versus individual privileges... like how the descendant of the ruler will enjoy everything at birth... this is perhaps the first awakening of the Chinese to the flaws of the old system... a fight for their ideologies... inspirations to similar efforts down the years like the story of Tian An Men...
such is the premise that based on the source materials alone, i was looking forward to the movie Bodyguards and Assassins even though i have heard some negative feedbacks from my friends...
the story of Bodyguards and Assassins is about Sun Yat Sen's visit to Hong Kong to have a secret meeting with leaders from other parts of China.... and the imperial guards is taking this opportunity to kill him... while activists try to do everything they can to protect him for the whole duration of the meeting... ya... so really... the title in itself explains everything...
now i have no idea whether this is an actual event... but i am thinking probably not... and actually i really hope that is the case cause if this really did happened... this would seriously put a dent in my impression of Sun Yat Sen as a wise and caring man... for a start... if u are someone who knows that u are going to be hunted down... it is kind of brilliant to announce to everybody u are going to such a dangerous place then entrust everything in the people there to ensure the safety of u and the proper execution of the meeting? in the movie, they did not say for whatever reason why the meeting MUST take place in dangerous Hong Kong and not anywhere else...
while i must give credit for the recreation of old Hong Kong... which looks pretty authentic... though i have a minor complain about the CG of the movie... when they revealed the shores of Hong Kong... the lighting and movement of the water is too regular and makes it look fake... then again... that maybe just me...
back to the story though... on the good side... this story focuses on character developement... most of the character introduced in the movie... u will know them quite abit at the end... but this is perhaps one flaw of the movie... there are too many characters that shared equal amount of attention such that it becomes hard to really associate with any of them... the lead... business man Li seems to be the Lead... but in the later half of the movie... his role is totally insignificant... for the activists... which are not even central to the whole Sun Yat Sen meeting itself but somehow got dragged in to the effort saw so much screen time... they even have dedicated scenes and death to "glorify" their efforts... but this really diffuse the whole focus of the movie...
the worst part of the movie... which is also debatable... because i do know some who liked this... but personally i hated this to the core... is the over the top fighting and melodramatic scenes... i felt so cheated when i saw the big guy getting stabbed by a whole mob and feel bad for him... only to find that he miraculously survived just to get stabbed by another mob... a beggar turned hero who can battle a whole group of imperial guards?... no wonder the uprising was a success...
most of the fighting scenes... except the initial one involving an aging general are so over the top they are on the brink of plain ridicule...
and just to make the story go along certain paths the director need to follow to include his scenes... there are so many elements that look so odd and out of place... faking a death by almost gutting urself? making everyone in a room draw lot only to find out the person who should not be there is there? right... there were a few hundred people inside... its impossible for u to know...
at the end of the movie...
i almost forgot that this is about the uprising and Sun Yat Sen... this is more like how a bunch of people screwed themselves up with bad plannings and stupid acts... and how Chinese were superhumans until... the uprising was successful...
the movie has lots of potential... strong background materials... a really good set... some of the best actors in the industry... but what it was lacking was the script and the direction... script-wise it would be forgivable it the movie itself managed to engross audiences so much to not o think so much about it... direction-wise... it seems that the movie cannot make up its mind whether this is a political drama or an action film... the end result is a hybrid that shows u a glimpse of drama with no added development... a host of seemingly insignificant characters introduced in too much details... and an action film featuring the most unrealistic... and ok... stupid fight scenes...
if u want to take a look at old Hong Kong... or want to look at some "Kung Fu" styled kung fu... u can take a look at this... if u are interested in the story of Sun Yat Sen... go to the library of Wikipedia...
this movie is a generous 2/5.
like all movies that sucked... below are some spoilers of how ridiculous things can be in old Hong Kong... especially by smart resistance standards.
