I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Simply A Masterpiece

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

I thought this would have been just a martial arts movie. I was wrong. It is more than that. I actually would not classify it as Martial Arts movie, but as Historic Movie (about a moment in time of a Country where Martial Arts where important). The events narrated and the way they are narrated take a more important place than the (anyway very good) martial arts scenes. I cannot understand its underrating! It is absolutely wonderfully acted, moving, epic. The characters are so human, you can "fall in love" with them, almost all actors give to their character such a humanity. This is FAR WAY BEYOND any martial art movie I have ever seen in long time. A fight for ideals, of students, of people with values, honor, integrity, dignity. People who wanted to change things. And this story is told with sensibility and humanity.

The driving theme of this film is Dr Sun's importance to China. He is the guy who is credited with liberating the Chinese from the tyranny of the Empress Dowager Cixi. She is the shadowy figure we see at the beginning of this film (and at the end of another great Chinese film, Warlords). Dr Sun's idea was to make China a free, prosperous, and powerful nation. Well, I guess two out of three ain't bad. Nevertheless, he is considered the "Father of The Nation", and you will see his portrait proudly displayed today at China's big political meetings.Bodyguards and Assassins was a fun, deeply moving, and brilliantly acted piece of propaganda. I enjoyed it without English subtitles. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it less or more if I knew what the characters were saying? I was fortunate enough to watch this film with my Chinese friend who reads widely on this subject. He survived the horrors of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and left for Australia shortly after the Tiananmen Square massacre. His healthy cynicism for his home country was on full display as we watched Bodyguards. Every time a character died for Sun, a caption popped up stating the date of birth and death of said character. My Chinese friend would grin. "These are not even real people", he would say. Indeed, the whole story is just another wonderful example of "alternative history" - a genre played with a deft hand by dictatorships everywhere. Bodyguards lovingly polishes the mythology of its biggest political icon outside of Mao. Although, my Chinese friend cautioned, "Sun wasn't exactly a saint. He was supported by the criminal underworld". Nevertheless, the film takes great pains to deliver the idea that Sun's revolution is worth the sacrifice of many lives.The concept of many people sacrificing themselves for one hero will grate on our Western sensibilities. Our Jesus-archetype is the exact opposite. We tend to prefer the idea of one person sacrificing himself for many. This would explain why many Western critics find this film a little over the top.If you watch this film for nothing else, then watch it for actor Wang Quexi's breathtaking arc-of-character. It is a credit to the man's skill that I could feel what he feels without understanding Mandarin. For this performance, Wang became the first mainland Chinese to win Best Actor at the Hong Kong Film Critics Awards.

...i was right. Big blockbuster aimed at mainland Chinese audience. lots of nationalism and lots of stars emoting. but somehow it didn't work. yes i have read a lot of reviews on IMDb and was intrigued to find out what people thought and i agree with one guy who said that that there's great build up but the ending was just over the top action. i mean the acting at some points is really great. the main guy is really good and holds the film together;Nicolas ste does quite a touching turn in his role, and Donnie yen plays a loser in it , quite convincingly. but it just all seemed to be manipulation for the final climax...cue sun yut sen hidden from view with his white hat.OK so I've also read reviews that this has great nationalistic appeal because of the legend of sun yut sen but unfortunately for me, I'm not too keen on manipulation , whether its nationalist or not. and although i liked parts of the drama in the first half,although it did get a bit meandering after a while as i wasn't sure who to focus on, when it comes to the action bit. i had to pause it. i mean the tone totally changed. from drama with some decent acting in it ( as if it were Wong kar wai) to b movie with the big giant in it. i should have guessed what the giant was in it for but basically its the token lovable giant character thats a throw back to goonies and its just a bit cheesy. in fact the whole action set up of protecting this dude with the white hat. i mean there's no explanation. he doesn't talk, hes just a dude in a white hat. yes to mainlanders hes sun yut sen but from a normal film-goer hes a dude in a white hat that lots of people run through fruit markets ready to take a shed-load of arrows as they run through street-crowds. it just didn't make any sense.the action just suddenly appeared and all the build up ( not that the build up was all that engaging ) as i think there were too many characters and not enough interest. the Leon lai character was a complete EH character. i mean what the hell, he just slept on the floor throughout the film and took a bath, and then as I'm about to see , take on an army of men. i mean EH? makes no sense. Chinese action filmmakers seem to love their slow motion and emoting but there's no real trust of the script. which is quite well written at times . finally there's Donnie yen. well we cant have a Donnie yen film without Donnie kicking ass can we? the problem is that he suddenly moves from being unshaven drunk to bad-ass Donnie yen in the blink of an eye and his character just vanishes because...well...no one messes with Donnie yen. .the fight between him and cung le was just b movie action, wasn't sure the importance of cung le but it just interrupted the flow of the main film. the ending between him and cung le was just manipulative and like the whole film didn't have any real personal drama but just played on symbolism and i haven't gotten to the bit where he punches a horse in the face but anyway you get the idea towards the very end the melodrama was touching. between the father and son and actually this scene with tony leung trying to aim his gun was quite good too, suddenly the film regained its Oscar worthy status.but because of everything thing beforehand: Leon lai fighting, Donnie yen horse-punching, all trying to get in the way of a dumb assassin. the stupidity of the film let it down. and the close up of sun yut sen was a bit heavy handed. like i said if it wasn't playing on the nationalism of the Chinese,id say he looked uncannily like a woman with a mustache. from the very start despite the posters and big announcements and premature nationalist back-patting hype i wasn't expecting a lot from this film, like i said i had the idea it'd be an odd mix of drama, action and that it lasted 3hrs( hence my reluctance to watch it for a while)and as the cast weren't really 'actors' but more 'characters' and yet this was a story that required 'actors' and less action. i mean Simon lam, probably the best hope of an actor in the film, dies too early with a pointless character, tony leung hides behind his glasses doing nothing except looking scared. the only real actor is the main guy who has dignity and grace. and his son wasn't too bad of an actor either , but the others. played character parts. and to be frank, needed better actors with better stories, or just cut out of the script completely. OK I've rambled long enough. too many characters. too pointless stories.action seemed OK but didn't mix with the drama which in turn didn't really have any interesting turns. manipulative melodrama. bit boring at times.you get the idea.cung le vs yen? not as interesting as yen vs horse.I'm afraid. i like Eric stang with mustache tho. he looks like Mr creosote in the meaning of life.'another wafer monsieur?'Not the best way to review this example of 10yrs of Peter Chan's hard work in getting this to the screen but hey, it won loads of awards and made lots of money so who cares , right?

Very disappointing film. This film last's 138 min. In my opinion it was at least 45 min too long. I find it a overlong film!. i think it had too little action. When a action showed up, i think it was poor. Even the drama and story was very boring. I think it should be renamed to Boringguards and Assassins. I like some Drama films and TV series, but i think this was not any good Drama.I think the camera angles and editing also was poor. It was hard to follow the action. I thought this film would be action packed, considering Donnie was in it. I don't think it was. With all that money, how could they make such a bad film? I don't know how they managed to do that. Also, Donnie wears a silly unconvincing bald-cap making his head look like a watermelon. Hahaa.It has only max 15 min of action out of 138 min. I felt cheated since, before it was released it was promoted as having 1 hour of action. More drama film than action film. I will never watch this film again. See only this if you like a boring drama film with very little action. Watch Ip Man instead, than this junk. I think it does at least have much better, story, acting, and fight scenes