Super Bodyguard (2016)

Super Bodyguard (2016) Aka: The Bodyguard; Iron Protector Chinese Title: 超級保鏢 Translation: Super Bodyguard

Starring: Yue Song, Xing Yu (as Shi Yanneng), Li Yufei, Collin Chou, Michael Chan Wai-Man, Shang Tielong, Xu Dongmei, Yang Jun-Ping, Li Changhai

Director: Yue Song

Action Director: Yue Song, Xing Yu

Yue Song is an interesting name in the annals of martial arts cinema. Much like director Xu Haofeng, he is his own creature with his own vision, which he has dedicated his career to carrying out. Both of them are martial arts filmmakers and both men write, direct, choreography and often produce their own films. Yue Song goes the extra mile and stars in his movies, making them these bizarre vanity projects in which he gets to kick the hell out of everyone because he just so awesome. And yet, looking at the outtakes of this movie, it’s clear that he does wish to return prestige to the Chinese kung fu movie, which many will agree has not been the same since 1990s. While Xu Haofeng’s movies are artsy, meticulously crafted love letters to the Wulin, or Martial World, Yue Song’s films are more bombastic, comic-book inspired affairs.

The movie begins with the crowd of people in the (fictional?) city of Lengsheng gathering around some guy in a brown leather overcoat doing the splits. That guy is Wu (Yue Song, of Iron Monkey and King of the Streets), the master of the Iron Leg and Iron Fist style. Wu kicks into action when a business man is being chased by some would-be robbers, whom he beats into submission. Wu turns down a reward from the guy, which will serve him well later. When Wu returns to the public square where he was getting in touch with his inner Van Damme, he is approached by Li Jiang (Xing Yu, of Kung Fu Hustle and Flash Point).

Li Jiang turns out to be Wu’s older martial brother. We learn through flashback that Li was kicked out of the school for some unspecified reason and ended up in the Big City. These days, Li Jiang runs a huge bodyguard service and invites Wu to work for him. Now that their master has died—Wu is carrying his ashes with him—Wu doesn’t have much else to do. And what do you know? His first client will be that same old businessman he saved earlier. The old man is not impressed with the big bruisers that Li Jiang suggests, and decides on Wu because he’s a “simple man.”

Wu gets hired to watch over Fei-Fei (Li Yufei), the man’s bitchy daughter. When she meets Wu for the first time, she’s drunk at a club and is almost getting carried off until Wu cracks the skulls of those who would take advantage of a girl who’s soused off her rocker. The next morning, he’s doing the splits in front of her room, so that when she gets out the shower, he can see her. (NOTE: the walls of her room are plastered with James Bond posters for some reason) She hates the idea of having a bodyguard—we learn that she’s had them around her since she was a child—and tries to insult him, buy him off, and even get him beat up, but his kung fu is too good for any of that. She even has one of her well-endowed friends try to seduce him, although he’s hiding a fancy salt shaker or something in his pants and that scares her away. Wait…what? It’s one of those Steven Seagal moments where the girl is doing a sexy dance in front of the guy who was in charge of all aspects of the film’s production and it becomes clear that he just wanted an in-script reason to look down her dress. Yue Song, you ol’ devil!

Anyway, there is a kidnap attempt on Fei-Fei, which Wu is able to stop because his kung fu allows him to run down a moving van despite his wearing shoes that weigh 50 pounds each. Oh, so Wu is like Goku from the Dragonball series. Just like in Bodyguard from Beijing, this is the moment where Fei-Fei starts to accept his presence, even though she doesn’t get all wet between the legs like Christy Chung did in that film (Jet Li, you sly dawg). We find out Li Jiang is working for a crime boss named Mr. Fu (who will be played by Michael Chan Wai-Man, of Broken Oath and Spirits of Bruce Lee). Li Jiang needs to guarantee Fei-Fei’s kidnapping and tries to remove Wu from her protection, but the decides to protect her sans payment. They hide out from the bad guys on an island, but it isn’t long before they get found out.

As you might have inferred from the synopsis above, Super Bodyguard is essentially a remake of Bodyguard from Beijing, itself a remake of Kevin Costner’s The Bodyguard. Being a remake of a remake, there is a bent quality to this film in that our hero is less Jet Li and more Donnie Yen from Dragon Tiger Gate. That goes for the fight scenes, which are exaggerated in terms of the hero’s abilities, and the characterization. Yue Song is pure Steven Seagal mode, displaying no weakness of character or lack of wisdom when the occasion calls for it. People criticize Jet Li’s stoic performance for the majority of Bodyguard from Beijing, but he does have some moral qualms to deal with when Christy Chung turns the seduct-o-meter up to 11. Yue Song is practically perfect from both the moral standpoint and his martial arts, which is expected in a film that he both wrote and directed.

That means that the action is largely one-sided. The film kicks off with a beatdown on some would-be muggers (or kidnappers), in which Wu takes down the ruffians with a combination of punches and takedowns. We later get a nice fight between Yue Song and Xing Yu, the only person in the film whose skills remotely matches Yue Song’s. There is also a good flashback fight with Xing Yu laying down the whoopeth against a bunch of Triad thugs. He shows some good moves and like the opening fight, wires are used extensively, but only for people to get knocked back 15-20 feet after each punch or kick.

The showstopper is an extended fight between Xing Yu’s main enforcers (including Li Changhai, Jiang Baocheng, and female fighter Xu Dongmei, apparently one of Jackie’s “New Seven Fortunes”) at an abandoned warehouse. The fight involves chains, hatchets, a horse-chopping blade, a head-butting style like in Drunken Master, wooden pallets, and giant tires. It’s a long and brutal fight and really the only moment that Yue Song is ever vulnerable or outmatched.

The finale consists of three set pieces. The first one has Yue Song finally kicking off the boots and fighting an entire army of bodyguards. The whole scene feels like a remake of the “Burly Brawl” with the Agent Smiths from The Matrix Reloaded, but with less CGI. At one point, Yue does the thing where he runs in circles on the bodies of the dozens of men surrounding him. Yes, it is wired, but it is complemented by plenty of footwork from him that is grounded. It does go overboard on the slow motion, moreso than the other fights. We then get a rematch between Wu and the Jin Gang from the warehouse fight. 

The last duel is a rematch between Yue Song and Xing Yu, in which the latter is wearing special iron gloves, which make him look like Jax from Mortal Kombat. It has some moments of good choreography, but it is surprisingly short and mainly consists of two men punching and kicking apart metal objects as though they were made of balsa wood. I think Michelle Yeoh and Luke Goss did it better in Silver Hawk. 

Super Bodyguard is enjoyable in a goofy way. The action is exaggerated enough to be fun. The fights almost all feel like the second restaurant sequence in Dragon Tiger Gate where Donnie in beating up an entire army with his bare hands. Yue Song does this, but with less of the extra posturing that Donnie often does these days.