The Bodyguard from Beijing (1994) User Reviews

The name is Chang, John Chang.

[hitchcockthelegend · 5/10 · 29 October 2008]

John Chang is sent from Bejing to protect the only witness to a murder, Michelle Yeung. However, as the two get in deeper and deeper into the fight for survival, they start to get feelings that could spell doom for the both of them.

Jet Li was some 4 years away from becoming a world star as opposed to his standing in Asia, his pre American efforts are a highly mixed bunch. Here with The Defender we find Li oozing cool and delighting in the art of chop sockery and intricate gun play, but strip away the action and we are left with a pretty empty film. It's a standard fable of bodyguard protects pretty girl (the delicious Christy Chung) and after the initial resentments subside, we find our duo falling in too deep and putting all at risk within their world. However, the action (the point of these pictures as we know) delivers royally, particularly in the last quarter where the ante goes thru the roof and the testo level follows it, it's here where Li and the rest of the grafters earn their respective corn. The finale sequences alone make this picture worth your while, whilst you will rarely see a skateboard and a torch be so intricately and funnily used at the same time!

Instantly forgettable outside of the action set pieces, it still manages to be an entertaining watch for the action junkies amongst us. 5.5/10

There's something spoiling this movie...

[The_Void · 7/10 · 4 September 2004]

The first thing you will notice about this Hong Kong version of 'The Bodyguard' is the incredibly awful dubbing. I've seen badly dubbed films before, but never anything quite like this. It's so bad, in fact, that it almost seems like someone hired voice actors that were nothing like the actor that they were dubbing out of spite. Maybe the director, or Jet Li annoyed the man in charge of voice actor casting, and he thought he'd get his own back. Perhaps the director requested terrible dubbing to give the film a seemingly unintentional comedy element? Whatever the reason; the dubbing in this film is poor. Very poor indeed.

Incredibly awful dubbing aside (and it is awful, make no mistake), the film does feature some nice moments. The story follows that of a young girl who is one of three witnesses to a murder. The other two have been killed in "accidents", so the girl's rich boyfriend hires her a bodyguard (complete with terrible dubbing) to protect her. Naturally, the two gradually fall in love as the film progresses. As I said, despite it's awful dubbing; the film does feature some nice moments. One of which involves an assassin taking out several guards with a bayonet, another of which involves an awfully dubbed kid exchanging his pretend gun with a police officer's, with hilarious comedy consequences, and naturally for a Jet Li film; there's Kung Fu, and lots of it.

The film has a rather profound element of comedy entwined within it's plot. As you know, there's an unintentional element, which is a result of the undeniably poor dubbing, and there's also an intentional element, which mostly comes from the little kid and the fat police officer. The cast on display here is nothing to write home about, and they're all poorly dubbed too. Jet Li takes the lead role, and he does fine (but nowhere near as good as he would do eight years later in the sublime 'Ying Xiong').

As I said, the dubbing in this movie is awful. Really, really bad and it does go some way to spoiling the entire thing. It's so bad that it's almost farcical, and at times it's hard to keep a straight face; which does the movie no favours in the credibility department. However, luckily for Jet Li and co; this movie is entertaining enough to just beat the awful dubbing. It's not a great film, but it is good and I recommend it to anyone that just wants to be entertained for an hour and a half. Or for anyone that wants to see proof of why subtitles are better than dubbing.

The Bodyguard, Hong Kong style

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 11 December 2015]

BODYGUARD FROM BEIJING is, surprise, surprise, a Chinese remake of the Kevin Costner-starring Hollywood hit THE BODYGUARD. I had the misfortune to watch the Americanised version of this, entitled THE DEFENDER, which substitutes the original dialogue with some really bad dubbing, but nevertheless I enjoyed the film as an efficient action thriller of the kind popular during the 1990s in Hong Kong. This one mixes the kind of gunplay familiar from John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat movies with more traditional martial arts mayhem courtesy of Jet Li. The plot is lightweight and slim and the romantic scenes are more annoying than touching, but nevertheless this is a film that delivers in the action stakes, providing solid, reliable fare.

Director Corey Yuen is a dab hand at crafting beautiful action sequences and the choreography is top-notch here as usual. There's a massive shoot-out in a shopping mall at around the halfway mark which doesn't disappoint and an excellent climax using all kinds of props in a gas-filled house that does well to avoid the usual clichés. Some dodgy looking wirework pops up here and there but doesn't spoil the otherwise engaging action. I also liked the hard edge in the fights; Li disposes of his enemies in a violent way and yet that violence is never gratuitous or dwelt upon too much.

In the titular role, Li is as fine as ever, still looking as young as he did in THE MASTER and playing the kind of ruthless, incorruptible figure that crops up time and again in his career. He's a tour de force in the fight scenes and good in the acting stakes too. Unfortunately, Christy Chung is intensely irritating as his ungrateful charge, but support from the likes of Kent Cheng (CRIME STORY) and Collin Chou (FLASH POINT) help to soften her presence and to be fair she does get less annoying as the film progresses. I wouldn't call BODYGUARD FROM BEIJING a masterpiece, but it is a dependable thriller that ably does what it sets out to do: entertain.

An Excellent Movie

[ebiros2 · 7/10 · 29 January 2013]

Hong Kong movie was hot in the late '80s, and into the '90s, and this is one of the movies from that era. The casting is unusual, and so is the plot. Jet Li, wasn't all that well known at the time, and this was Miss Chinese International 1992 Christy Chung's first big role ( I actually liked the miss Chinese International 92 runner up more than Christy, and she would have been perfect for this role ).

Jet Li's star was on the rise starting around the time this movie was made, and he starts getting noticed in the US around this time also. Simon Yam was briefly wooing Christy shortly after this movie was made. Simon of course had many other options as he was one of the most eligible bachelor in Hong Kong.

The movie's title is almost verbatim fact as Jet was from China, and Christy was from Canada. The unusual mixture of the two culture shows in the mood of these two actors. The plot is also unusual in that an operative from China protects a rich capitalist girl. The movie's background looks more modern than the present day Hong Kong. Hong Kong seems to have slid backwards in culture since its repatriation. This is evident when you see this movie.

So this is an interesting movie, and the producers at Dimension Film did a really good job of capturing the character of Li, and Chung, and incorporating them into the story. Jet Li is like an unstoppable terminator in this movie, and it correctly highlights his skills, and power.

This is an excellent movie, and is worth a watch if you're a Hong Kong movie fan.

A solid gung-fu action thriller : WARNING! one minor spoiler.

[rory_penland · 26 May 2005]

If you liked "Black Mask" for it's kung-fu (pronounced gung-fu in Asia) action, you will love the final gung-fu battle of this movie. Trying to fight a battle with a more than worthy opponent AND the house is filling up with gas fumes. Very clever.

The girl is annoying in the first half of the film, but that is usually the case in Hong Kong films of this nature. The ladies are written to be comic relief.

I can not comment on the dubbing as I have seen the original Chinese version on TV here in China, but usually the dubbing in these older Chinese action films is hilariously bad. You may have fun with that as well. This is not the type of film you want to take seriously. It is a escapist gung-fu police thriller.

My only beef is that I would have liked to have seen more gung-fu action and a little less gun play. It is a nice action rental to kick back and watch with friends.

Excellent effort from Corey Yuen

[DanStarkey · 7/10 · 19 December 2004]

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.

Jet Li can guard my body anytime!

[Oosterhartbabe · 7/10 · 27 December 2004]

A pretty good movie all together, with only two real problems-1) The annoying, whiny girl. This seems to be a problem with a great many of the Hong Kong movies that I've seen. Jackie Chan had a series of brainless, whining, silly girlfriends, women who made you wish for an overpass to shove them off of. And several chow yun fat movies that i've seen also contained truly lame girlfriends who just made you grind your teeth. Why is this? Is that what's considered attractive over in China? The girl in the Bodyguard goes from whining constantly about Li's attempts to save her life to turning horribly kittenish(and still useless) after he shoots up a mall killing over a dozen assassins, making her see his value. The same could not be said of her, as she has no value. The second problem was the ending. Not that I wanted Li's character to end up with bubblehead-far from it. It made me particularly happy to see that he didn't. What i don't understand is the long shot of him standing in his uniform in front of the Chinese flag while music plays soulfully. What kind of ending is that? Was this movie bankrolled by the Chinese government as a propaganda film? I kept expecting Li to thrust out a forefinger at the audience and say "Uncle Mao wants you!" Otherwise, this was a fairly good film, with some excellent fight scenes and a truly interesting bad guy. Worth a watch or two.

Simple But Fun

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 6 February 2017]

A corrupt businessman commits a murder and the only witness is the girlfriend of another businessman with close connections to the Chinese government, so a bodyguard from Beijing is dispatched to help two Hong Kong cops protect the witness.

There is not much to this film that anyone with common sense couldn't figure out. The romantic angle, the plot twists... this is a very by-the-numbers story. But while that may not make for a great script, it makes the film fun to follow.

And the comedy relief is not bad. The overweight bodyguard is rather amusing. This is amplified by the English dubbing, which seems to make him even more of a clown than the original language (Cantonese?). As much as I prefer subtitles to dubbing, it works great this time.

Great movie!

[katielubsobi · 9/10 · 14 September 2003]

**some spoilers** The Bodyguard from Bejing (aka the Defender) is a great Jet Li movie. When I first rented it, I was expecting action, action, and more action. To my delight, I was wrong! Even though I like to see action, I was happy to see Jet in a semi-romantic role. The tension and angst between himself, Christy Cheung, and her rich boyfriend is really nicely done, and the romantic scenes are perfect (although I REALLY wish Jet had kissed her!).

Alot of people also dislike Christy Cheung's character. She is whiny, high-tempered and spoiled, right? Jet's character has invaded her life, and totally changed it. She has every right to be angry with him, and act like a brat. She doesn't treat other people that way. Her character is sweet, friendly, and charming when Jet isn't around. Her behavior toward Jet changes when she begins to fall in love with him. And he in turn softens as time goes by.

There was also a surprising amount of guns and bullets. Usually Jet is all hands and feet, but this time it's more like guns and... more guns. Alot of Jet's got upset about how much gunplay there was, but I say variety is the spice of life. You can rent Meltdown or Hero if you want kung-fu.

Although the picture and sound quality make you think the movie was done in the 50s, the film itself is great. There's comedy, mystery, romance, and of course action! Must see for any Jet fan!

No Fist of Legend, but not bad

[lillifer77 · 6/10 · 14 June 2002]

What is it w/ Bodyguard movies where the female always has to hate the bodyguard but ultimately falls in love with him? She was utterly annoying, and I'm surprised his character falls for her, but ... good enough excuse for cool fight scenes. Jet Li excels at playing these tough cops/soldiers, devoted only to the mission and his code of honor. His hand to hand combat is great stuff to watch and I love how calm and still he is until it's time to unleash his fighting ability. It's fun seeing this same tough guy turn into a nervous wreck when he finds himself falling for his assignment, but even better to see him kicking ass in the mall, or the house, or... wherever. If only his female costar could have a bit more spine and brains!

Martial arts couldn't save this one.

[dustinclousher · 3/10 · 16 January 2022]

The story was terrible, not even Jet Li's moves could make this flop cool. No one could act except for Li, it was painful waiting to get to the fight finally. The kid with the gun was bad, the gas aspect didn't make sense. Just bad.

A Good Jet Li Movie--Action and Romance

[jellibean88 · 10/10 · 5 January 2000]

Bodyguard from Beijing is a HK remake of Hollywood's The Bodyguard starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner. But HK's version is quite different and a whole lot better. First of all, the relationship between the two stars of the movie (Jet Li and Christy Chung) has more tension and is more believable. And the action is incomparable. The shopping mall scene and especially the end fighting scene are simply too awesome to describe. You have to see it for yourself. Albeit the fact that there are some melodramatic scenes, this movie is a must for any Jet Li fan or wushu/action fan.

The superior Bodyguard

[DanTheMan2150AD · 7/10 · 18 December 2023]

The Bodyguard from Beijing is a bit of lively, unpretentious fun that takes Mick Jackson's The Bodyguard but replaces Kevin Costner with Jet Li and the weird musical numbers with kung fu. Corey Yuen directs with a visceral energy that wouldn't be out of place in a Wong Jing movie and although, the writing is certainly a bit on the hokey side Li's charisma as a real man's man shines through. With plenty of high-energy and varied gunfights to keep you engrossed, a solid musical score and a fantastic final fight to boot elevate what could have otherwise ended up as a rather undercooked and stale riff, yes it's rather generic but there's a heart-beating somewhere underneath its surface. Also, the annoying kid gets shot in the foot which warranted a cheer.

Hokey, and for a martial arts film not much martial arts.

[smakawhat · 3/10 · 25 October 2000]

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

Classic, Jet Li's 1st modern action movie

[dworldeater · 8/10 · 30 January 2014]

The Bodyguard From Beijing aka The Defender is a solid action classic starring Jet Li and directed by Corey Yuen. Prior to this project, Jet Li had only done period kung fu movies. This is his 1st modern action movie that combines martial arts with gunplay. Jet Li is a bodyguard from mainland China imported to protect a prosecution witness ( the gorgeous Christy Cheung) from harm. Christy Cheung's character initially does not like the elite bodyguard hired to protect her. As she falls into danger, Jet Li keeps her out of harms way, she then finds appreciation for Jet Li and his dedication to his job. A bond and mutual attraction grows between them. Kent Cheng appears in this as well as a cop assigned to work with the bodyguard. Kent, equally adept at drama and comedy is mostly the comic relief for the film. Corey Yuen did a fine job directing here with keeping the right tone, telling the story fluently with the right amount of action and getting good performances from the cast. Corey also is the action choreographer so he is responsible for the quality of the action also, which was done well with a healthy dose of guns, explosion and kung fu. He also works with Jet Li as action choreographer on all of Jet's US films. Overall, TBFB is a solid action flick and when I want to watch a Jet Li movie with guns this is my 2nd choice only to the awesome, incredible action classic Black Mask.

7 out of 10

[dragon ma young · 11 July 2001]

an exciting love story with everything going for it. the humor, the action, the romance, all great. could have used some more of the great action, though. Jet Li is terrific as the bodyguard from Bejing. The last fight, the faucet fight, is really cool. check this one out.

The Hong Kong version of the Bodyguard

[The-Sarkologist · 4/10 · 28 October 2011]

This is the Hong Kong version of The Bodyguard. Hong Kong cinema seems to take existing American movies and rewrite them in a way that they should have been. This has been done with Witches of Eastwick, coming out as Erotic Ghost Story; Fast Times at Ridgemont High, coming out as Yesteryou, Yesterme, and Yesterday; and Die Hard, coming out as High Risk. In some cases they come out much better, as with High Risk, other times they are just ordinary, as with Bodyguard from Beijing.

A school teacher, along with two others, witnesses the murder of an accountant. The other two are killed but the police manage to get to the teacher in time and protect her. The teacher's boyfriend is very rich and hires a professional bodyguard from China to protect her. It begins with the woman hating the bodyguard because he is invading her privacy and treating her like a prisoner, but this changes after he saves her life she falls in love with him.

The interesting thing about this movie is that the bodyguard (Jet Lee) is not interested in a romance, and what makes this movie much better than the American counterpart, is that he does not change at the last minute and come an professes his love to her. This is one thing that makes a superb movie, and that is consistency of characters. Her character changes, namely because he has saved her life in a very obvious way.

The Hong Kong tendency to go overboard is not that prevalent in this movie. This is somewhat more American as it tries to have a realistic plot. It is true that the plot is somewhat more realistic than an American movie, but it does fall down in scenes such as the shopping mall. There are a couple of characters which make the film interesting, and that is Fat Po and Billy. Fat Po is a police officer that is fat and addicted to gambling. Billy is the nephew of the school teacher and these two characters bounce off of each other quite effectively. Fat Po is an incompetent police officer that bumbles through life while Billy is an eager child who wants to look good in front of his peers.

This movie is more suspenseful than High Risk. It is not really an action movie, though it has some reasonable scenes. Most of this time it is waiting for the enemy to attempt to kill the teacher because she is the witness. There and are some other suspenseful moments and the movie delivers it quite well.

Bodyguard from Beijing is a rather average movie, but enjoyable if you like the Hong Kong cinema.

This film broke my heart

[PrincessBlade · 10/10 · 14 February 2003]

I am a big fan of Jet Li, and absolutely loved this film. It is beautiful and very sad. Brilliant work by all the actors and the fight scenes were great. The ending was not quite what I expected - warning! not like the Hollywood endings!

Relatively dull

[sarastro7 · 5/10 · 9 November 2004]

For Jet Li fans this movie is worth watching, but most others may want to give this one a miss. Jet is not bad as the mainland elite soldier (top of his class, of course, always willing to sacrifice himself for the mission), and the acting is not bad (the Hong Kong cops are believable and good-natured, and the girl's kid brother is OK), but the overall action is weak, and so is the story: A young girl, who's a rich guy's girlfriend, is a protected witness, and must be defended by the best bodyguard available, as the bad guys want to kill her before she can testify. Very standard plot. It takes a turn as Jet kills one of the bad guys, thus calling down the vengeance of the dead guy's brother, who then comes after the bodyguard (not really caring about the girl, although he does work for the same bad guy she's going to testify against). This vengeful brother, interestingly, is played by Ngai Sing (Seraph from the Matrix sequels). However, the final battle is not very exciting, in my opinion, although the gas angle was a new element.

5 out of 10.

An entertaining action film worth watching

[jiangliqings · 10/10 · 13 April 2000]

*** stars out of ****

The Bodyguard from Beijing is an action thriller that mixes romance and humor. The plot is mainly a backdrop for some grand shootouts and martial arts sequences, but it does have some moments of characterization. The movie may not be as jaw dropping as some of Jackie Chan's films (or some of Li's other works) but it delivers the expected action and thrills. The film is basically about a bodyguard (Jet Li) who is hired to protect a beautiful woman (Christy Chung) after she witnessed a murder. Now, many people will stop at nothing to have her killed and Li has invoked the wrath of a dangerous ex-soldier whose brother Li killed.

I was surprised by the fact that there was more shootouts and gunplay than Li's usual kung fu, but the shootouts were quite thrilling and entertaining, particularly the mall sequence that almost gets a bit absurd in the amount of people carrying guns inside. For a while there (due to the amount of gunplay) I was expecting Chow-Yun Fat to just ram through a door and kill all the villains.

As for the acting, Jet Li is actually quite fun to watch in his transformation from a hardened bodyguard to a soft man falling in love. Christy Chung is decent though she's mostly relegated to the role of damsel in distress.

My main complaint about the movie was the how the gunshots looked in the film's final shootout. When the bullets hit the wall, they look more like cartoonish sparks than rough bullet impact. However, the great martial arts fight at the end more than made up for it. It's a great action sequence, as it involves Li and the dangerous ex-soldier kicking each other around while trying to get water from a faucet due to a gas leak.

Good!!!

[Nick_Vorobyov · 29 June 2001]

This film is pretty entertaining. But this film has about 3 action scenes were "Jet Li" shoots people with a gun. And he killed like a 100 people!! There's also a brief fight and a classic fight scene at the end of the film. The story is also good. But this isn't your usual Jet Li film because it contains less action then any other of his films. But this film is really good to watch for a good story with a action twist. If you like Jet Li you will probably like this film. So go rent this film now!!

A Stock Action Film

[cmandvl · 5/10 · 14 July 2019]

I rewatch this all the time because it is just so cheesy and over the top. Which makes it so great! I like how the love story between Jet Li and the female lead is evenly baked. It feels well earned and I really believe they fall in love with one another by the film's end. The romantic build up and tension is nicely constructed. The action scenes are fun and blockbuster-ish. The plot is over the top. The villain is over the top. But that's great, too. The comedic side characters and even the kid are great additions as well. It's just a overall fun movie to buy into. The ending is also the best, most corniest closing ever...and I love it!

10

[nakegemini · 10/10 · 3 September 2005]

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.

Kiddie fu

[=G= · 5/10 · 22 July 2003]

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)

One of the best damn action movies I've ever seen!

[backlash-1 · 10/10 · 20 July 2001]

Well it's nice to finally see Jet Li in a movie that's not martial art related. Playing a superb bodyguard trained in Red China, hired to protect a beautiful girl he's doing a fine job. The fighting sequences in this movie are among the best I've ever seen, shooting from the most impossible angles while jumping around like crazy to avoid his enemies. You gotta see this to believe it! I know there are a lot of Chinese action movies like this but if u want to see one, be sure it's this one!!!