Mini Review: Takashi Miike's Bodyguard Kiba

Bodyguard Kiba is a 1993 v-cinema martial arts film directed by Takashi Miike and would spawn 2 sequels to his version of Bodyguard Kiba.

The film follows Junpei, a former low-ranking yakuza who conned them out of 500 million yen, as he hires Naoto Kiba to protect him during the retrieval of the money.

To be completely real, I hyped this film up in my head like crazy, I thought it would've been the most awesome badass film ever and it kinda was actually.

Due to being very very early in Miike's career (and being a v-cinema film), this film is so much more different than the rest of the films I've seen. At times, I couldn't believe this was him at all.

I don't think there really is a one specific strong point of this film, it's actually really well-rounded despite being a low budget action film.

They don't focus on just the action or the story and lack on one or the other, they give enough time for the characters to breathe and flesh them out (Mainly Junpei's evolution from a thug to a normal guy), while it sprinkles in more than enough action scenes.

Daisuke Nagekura's performance as Junpei is easily one of the best parts of the film. He has such a natural performance and a pretty likable personality that the film expands on over the first hour.

Kiba was my favorite character though, there's really nothing cooler than watching a stone cold guy in a nice suit beat up thugs using nothing but the power of karate. 

Even despite the fact he's sorta emotionless, it's not his entire thing. He still has plenty of moments to give him more character and personality than just "I'm a bodyguard".

The action is, of course, great. It's not gun heavy at all like his later films, in fact a gun is only fired once this entire film. Every fight scene feels a lot one from an old martial arts film, it's flashy and choreographed like a coordinated dance, the camera's static, each hit makes a really loud noise, and it's full of 1 guy vs like 10 and winning.

The action is just so much unlike what I'm used to with Miike, I feel less like I'm watching one of his films and more like I'm watching someone's faithful recreation of a 70s action film. I really wish he would use martial arts more in his films.

Overall, while not much I can say on this film, it's a pretty good film if you can find it and I recommend giving it a watch if you like the 70s Hong Kong action type of martial arts film.

That's all for now, Love and Peace!