Dipping into the world of Martial Arts can be a confusing adventure. Films tend to go under more names than a career criminal (not including original Cantonese or Mandarin titles). Prints can have laughable dubbing, or hard to read subtitles. The print-quality tends to vary between passable and atrocious, and the stories often assume a passing knowledge of Chinese myths and history which makes them hard to follow.
However, if the movie is as mad as a box of frogs, and the action puts Hollywood to shame, none of this really matters in my opinion. Jackie Chan movies make a pretty good gate-way into martial arts. Even if you don't like it, you've always got the insane outtakes at the end as consolation.
Magnificent Bodyguards is an early film in his career which he not only stars, but co-choreographs. Its got plenty of action, and a relatively straightforward plot (until the end). Jackie plays Lord Ting Chung, whose hired by Lady Nan (Ping Wang) to protect her and her sick brother as they cross the Stormy Mountains, a wild bandit-filled zone. With four bad-ass deputies running the territory, and evil Lord Chu controlling them, Jackie needs the help of his two brothers for the journey. Chang (Leung Siu-Lung) is a deaf Leather maker, and Tsung (James Tin Jun) is a fighter with a protection racket known as the Skinning
Swordsman. (one skins humans, the other doesn't!)
Did I say the plot was simple? The film is littered with hard-nuts and deadly assassins, that make the crossing more complex. After a while, the odds begin to look bad.
This was the first Hong Kong movie to be shot in 3D, and consequently there are plenty of shots of poles, knives and sharp sticks coming straight at the camera. In most films thats pretty annoying, but it makes sense in this. However, similar to Amityville 3D and others of the era, the picture can get a little blurry.
This flick doesn't have as good a reputation as Drunken Master and Snake in the Eagles Shadow, which he also made in 1978, but I think its a gem. Its got great footwork and plenty of different weapons. There's no stupid sub-plots, or characters only there for light relief. It doesn't have Jackie's trademark use of environment in the fight scenes, but all in all, it would make a great 3D Bluray release (fingers crossed!)
Stray notes:
There's something fishy about that Sedan...
If you've ever wondered what would of happened in Raiders of the Lost Ark if Indiana Jones wasn't afraid of snakes, I think this film covers it.
In the version I watched, one scene builds up the tension with a good blast of the Star Wars music!
There is an inverse law in Hong Kong movies that the more disabled or elderly you seem, the better the fighter.
Did they run out of film at the end?
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