Day 39 in Beijing

The 23rd of December 2009 = the 39th day into my Beijing journey.

This must be a movies week for me; tonight is another movie night. Bodyguards and Assassins, the most recent martial arts movie by a HK director Desen Chan, famous producer Peter Chan and loads of big actors and actresses. A movie must be seen, and it must be from the movie cinema, wakaka. There's a cinema in the APN shopping centre in Wangfujin. It's only 30RMB per ticket, it is a domestic film so it's relatively cheaper than other international blockbuster movies.

Bodyguards and Assassins is a movie about an assassination in Hong Kong on the 15th October 1906. On this day, a group of bodyguards made up of revolutioners, businessmen, begger, cart driver, student, gambler, circus owner etc, were trying to protect Sun Zhong Shan (孙中山). The businessman hosting Sun Zhongshan (who's coming to HK for a planning meeting for the upcoming revolution against the Qing Dynasty of China) found out that the Qing officials has sent a group of assassins to kill Sun and therefore the businessman gathered a group of individuals and combined their unique skills to protect Sun in Hong Kong.

The characters in this movie are mostly made up for the storyline but everyone one of them have a very interesting and unique background. Each individual have their own reasonings behind why they agreed to join this dangerous plan.

Firstly there's Shaobai Chen 陈少白(actor, 梁家辉Tony Leung). He's the planner and initiator of Sun's visit to Hong Kong, a revolutionist. He is willing to sacrifice everything for the upcoming revolution because the only way out to make a better life for everyone in China is to take down the emperor and his dictatorship, and to do so there must be a revolution. He always borrown money from Yutang Li (a businessman) as the funds for the revolution and is also the teachr of Li's son, Chongguang Li. I learned from this character how one can suffer from guilt and the lack of ability to choose even from doing something he believes in, when he had choose between protecting his student/close friend's only son, or letting this young revolutionist contribute to the plan. This is one of the two only remaining bodyguards left behind at the end of the day, it leaves a trail of thoughts for me.

Then there's Yutang Li 李玉堂(actor Xuexi Wang王学圻), the financial backbone of for the revolution taking place in Hong Kong. He's the owner of a large business Hong Kong, very well known and every businessman or politicians in Hong Kong all gives very high respect. Li supports Chen's plans and actions for many years with an intial intention of keeping Hong Kong peaceful so he can grow his business. When he realised that his only son was taking part in the revolution he tried every effort to keep his son away from the 'danger'. But with Chen being kidnapped by the Qing assassins and the instabilities within Hong Kong, he was slowly dragged into the whirl pool mess of the plan and eventually became the leader of the bodyguards group. From Li, I saw the pride of being someone who believes in the country and belives in a brighter future. No matter how he tried to stay away from dangers, when he realised that he can in fact make a difference he took the lead undoubtedly and bravely, stay calm and did everything to make the plan happen. This pride of leading the group, giving them the mental support and guidance, staying calm in all kind of situations and the fatherhood love he gives to his son are what attracts me to this charater the most.

Chongyang Shen 沈重阳 (actor Donnie Yen甄子丹), is one of the best fighters in this movie. He's also addicted to gambling and often lose all this earnings. He was paid to keep an eye on Chen and Li and report everything to the assassins. From what he found out about the plan, he indirectly led the assassins to the circus and the circus owner Fang Tian (one of the bodyguards) was killed. The night before the 15th October he went to visit his ex-wife (Yue Ru) who is now one of Li's wives. Yue Ru found out about the plan and realised that Li will need as much help as he needs to even stay alive at the end of the day, so she told Shen that the her and Li's daughter was actually Shen's daughter. She asks of Shen to keep Li alive because Li is the reason why his daughter was still alive and living a happy life now. Shen changed from that night and went out of his way secretly protecting Li and his bodyguards ont he 15th October. This is one of the saddest stories in this movie for me. Shen sacrificed his life going against the most dangerous assassin because he believes that only if he can end all these, then his daughter will still have a 'father' to take care of her. Donnie Yen is one of the best martial artists in Asia and his fighting scenes deserves the most applause in this movie. There was a 10 minutes long fighting scene between Shen and one of the assasssins (Kung, the world champion fighter). To be honest, before this movie, I wasn't a fan of Donnie Yen at all, but from this movie I am really amazed at his martial arts and his acting skills. He made his character the most important and heart breaking for all audiences.

Another fighter in the bodyguards was the begger, Yubai Liu刘郁白 (actor Leon Lai黎明). He was a rich and handsome young man with unique martial art skills inherited from his family (using a super heavy metal made fan as his weapon), but he fell in love with his father's woman (actress Michelle Lee李嘉欣) and ended up witnessing the death of his father and his lover. He was struck really hard by their deaths and became a drug addict and eventually a begger. He joined the bodyguard gang because of the support Li (the businessman) has been giving him since before the collapse of his family and now he's paying back his loyalty to Li. All the audiences in the cinema was really surprised to find out that the scruffy looking begger was Leon Lai (one of the most famous artist from Hong Kong). Thank god his appearance was changed later in the movie and was showing a very artistic martial art performance (Leon does not know kong fu).

Nicolas Tse 谢霆锋 was Li's cart-driver, A-Si阿四. A-si is a very pure and extremely loyal character. He's at a similar age as Li's son (let's call him Li Junior for now, lol) and are very close to Li's family. For A-Si, the most important thing in his life is the safety of his masters, Li and Li Junior. He dreams of marrying this girl from a photoshop in town and asked if his master, Li, is willing to introduce them. A-Si is the most naive character in this movie, he do everything for and only for his loyalty to his masters, and dreamed of having an happily ever after life with his girl. But loyalty brought him death, and he was killed by the leading assassin (who also killed Liu the begger, and Shen the martial artist, and pretty much every other important character in this movie). I was so touched by the scene when he got really beaten by the assassin but still presistenly holding onto the assassin's leg to make it harder for the assassin to follow his young master. Not my favourite scene.

Li Chongguang李重光 (actor Bojie Wang王柏杰) well I call him Li Junior, is the only son of Li (the businessman) and the young master of A-Si. He's the yongest character in the bodyguard group, aged 17 years old. He's deeply influenced by his teacher, Chen (the planner), although he's still childish and naive at times but possess a very determined heart towards revolution. This often leads to the big debates and fights between him and his father. One person must be chosen to play the role of Sun during the day while Sun is actually hiding in basement for the meeting. Li Junior's name was being drawn out from the pot. His father didn't realise it was his son that was cover and was in deep shock to realise it was too late to pull him to safety. Li Junior was eventually stabbed to death by the leading assassin (who still believes it was Sun himself inside the cart). A character of determination and strong beliefs, although he's young but he knows he can make an impact. Very interesting character.

All the bodyguards in this movie who knows how to fight (martial arts) were male except for Fang Hong 方红 (actress: Li Yuchun李宇春). She's the daughter of the Fang Tian, the circus owner. Fang Hong is very fast and flexible in her martial arts, her personality is very strong and stubborn but secretly dreamed of a peaceful and stable life. The sudden death of her father left her with nothing but shock and anger, and therefore she joined the bodyguards group to revenge for her father. On the 15th October, while she was chasing after and fighting the assassin who killed her father, she accidentally found the trap set by the assassins where they plan to set a bomb to kill all the bodyguards. The limited time and ability left her with no choice but to sacrifice herself and set off the bomb to kill the assassin, including herself. What's most interesting about this character wasn't about the character Fang Hong, but about the actress Li Yuchun. She's the most famous singing competition idol winner in Chinese history. Her appearance is rather non-feminine and was definitely a new stream of fashion for young Chinese. I always wondered why on earth would she become the Chinese idol winner that year and why is she still famous now. She's not a great singer, not a great dancer (although she believe she is) and also not a great actress. In this movie, her character is to be honest, made for her, the character and the story behind the character were made for Li Yuchun. Li Yuchun's commercial value is undenyable, she was voted to be the idol winner and this is the first sign of democratic in China. This was published by the Times magazine (Asia version) and she was the cover person. Can you believe this? I still couldn't agree to why she's one of the top leading artist in China now but I cannot neglect to the Li Yuchun effect in China.

Another most-talked-about actress in China now is actress Bingbing Fan范冰冰, acting as Yueru月茹, the fourth wife of Li (the businessman). She was the wife of Shen (the martial artist) and left him once she found out she's pregnant with Shen's child. She realised that this martial artist and gambler will not be able to give her child a happy and stable life, and therefore left him and married to the businessman as his fourth wife. Fan Bingbing was only acting in supporting roles for many years until recently people started to realise how different she is now. She's very hardworking, very very hardworking, just look at the amount of productions she had this year. She opened up her own production company and became a producer herself for her own movies. She is very beautiful, maybe, one of the most beautiful actress now in China (for many people) and she never fails to stir up massive discussions and debates in the entertainment industry (from her appearance, to her company, to her productions, to her rumours, to her fashion sense etc). I actually like her a lot, her acting skills are quite good and she's open to act anything. I really like her performance in Zhang Ziyi's new film where Fan was the mean and nasty girl in the movie.

In the society now there's never a strict rule in the entertainment industry that only actress and actors can be in movies, or only singers can sing, or whatever. Now anyone can be an actor as long as you fit what the producer and director wants, or as long as you can bring some value to the production, or if you have any commercial value. Just like Mengke Bateer巴特尔, a very famous Chinese basketball player, took over the role as the tofu seller in the movie, Fuming Wang王复明. This role was definitely created for Bateer and Bateer only. In the movie, he's a monk that left Shaolin and became a tofu seller on the streets in Hong Kong. He looks very scary because of his size but he's in fact a very kind and naive person. His favourite hobby is gardening, haha, so cute. Li (the businessman) invited him to join the team and he agreed because of his loyalty to the country. In the movie, he wasn't a good kongfu fighter but definitely made a huge impact in defending and protecting his team mates with his size. There are several interesting shots in the movie where he was throwing cabbage like a professional basketball player at the assassins, haha!!!! In the movie, everyone calls him 'tofu' because he never shared his past with anyone. Eventually he used his full strength to fight against the hundreds of assassins and was killed. Before his last breath, he said to A-Si, "my name is Wang Fuming". I really like his character, not only that it is interesting how the producer incorporated Bateer's professional basketball skills into the movie and used it as his strength, but also because how kind and warm he was. After doing a little research on him, I found out that he's a mongolian, he was already 1.88m tall at the age of 8 and joined the Mongolia Basketball team at the age of 12 (2.1m tall). Through many years of practise and experience, he became the first Chinese NBA winner in 2003. Woot!!!!

Now finally comes the bad guy. There were 10 bodyguards against 500 assassins, but only the leader of the assassins were really the main character and the strongest fighter in the movie. The leader of the assassins, Xiaoguo Yan 阎孝国was by actor Jun Hu胡军, one of the top actors from Mainland China. Yan used to be the best student of Chen and was being raised up under the western education system. He became very much against westerners because of what they did to China and joined the Qing Dynasty troops. He believes that the revoulion led by Sun will never succeed and when he found out that Sun is coming to Hong Kong, he took on the role and led the assassins to kill Sun. Hu Jun is not a martial artist but he was trained for a long time for this movie and his role. He's definitely one of my favourite actors now, his professionalism and performance were amazing. No matter how bad and scary he was in killing so many bodyguards, but if we think from another point of view, he's really just doing his job and sacrificing himself for his loyalty to what he believes in. His only aim was to kill Sun, which he believed that Sun is inside the cart (by that was Li Junior inside the cart as a cover). Yan followed the cart and killed everyone that came into his way, after stabbing the person in the cart to death, he got shot from the back by Chen, his own teacher. He turned around and said nothing but 'I've completed what I must do'. A lot of audiences hate this role because he's the 'bad guy' and killed a lot of the 'good guys', but I like this character, for his passion and his loyalty.

After watching this movie, I was very moved by the passion of the revolutionists and the assassins. It's very easy now for people to loose faith in what you believe in and not standing strong. This film isn't based on a real story but definitely coincides with a lot of similar stories in history. A dream can bring strong and capable individuals together, no matter how much one person can contribute, the collection of all sacrifices is the essence of becoming successful.

Bodyguards and Assassins, a movie among my favourites, a movie I strongly recommend, a movie I will watch over and over again. Bravo!