Review: The Iron Protector.

The Bodyguard (not to be confused with Sammo Hung's also from 2016), also known as The Iron Protector and Super Bodyguard, is an action drama film directed by Yue Song, who stars in the lead role.

The movie revolves around Wu Lin, a master martial artist with iron shoes, who is hired by a dying man he saved to be the bodyguard of his spoiled daughter FeiFei, who is hunted by the same assassins who tried to kill her father.

Iron Protector, my 50th film of the year, is a film I haven't seen since my youth. I figured it would be only perfect for a film I've looked for for so long should be reserved for my biggest milestone so far.

This is a movie that prioritizes action above everything else, as it lacks in writing and story along with some questionable editing choices. This movie is also full of fade to blacks, tons of them, has a rather generic soundtrack and uses slow mo way too much in certain scenes for artificial drama that makes this movie feel like a soap opera at times.

It's also full of cliches. Exiled from the clan and turns evil, bodyguard (semi-)romance, betrayed by family, and of course the near invincible protagonist that only loses once among many more.

My biggest nitpick personally is the over reliance on cuts in the action, I've mentioned this in my review for Bulletproof Monk but I hate how many cuts are used in good action movies, just a simple 5 second action sequence will change angles up to 10 times at the worst and it makes me glad I didn't watch this movie while sick because it would've been straight up nauseating.

The action in this film is just incredible and easily the film's best (and only) strong suit. I'm not too versed with wire action films but there's a special kind of vibe that comes from seeing a guy get launched ten feet back from a couple punches that I'm a huge sucker for.

I personally prefer that kind of comically superhuman action over the more "grounded" (but still insanely over the top) martial arts you see from the movies of people like Mo Tse or Don Lee or Tak Sakaguchi even.

In my opinion, the best scenes in Iron Protector are the ones that shouldn't be humanly possible. The human car chase, the fight against five assassins, Wu Lin fighting his brother, and the freaking Kung Fu Hustle style 1 vs like 50 people (with as much toe smashing, by the way) are all the most entertaining parts of the film, more than the rest of the action, which is already entertaining enough.

It's like if an old Jackie Chan film took itself seriously, the movie only gets wackier and more over the top as it goes on and I do think this film would've been more well received if it went more towards the comedy route, as there isn't much depth to the film beyond the action.

Yue Song is also just perfect for the role of Wu Lin. He just has this really badass look to him and while he doesn't give a very memorable performance in terms of acting, I couldn't think of anyone else to play Wu Lin. Also, he makes himself look like Pierce Brosnan near the end of the film and it did not change how cool he was in this movie.

Personally, I wouldn't mind living in a world where Yue Song did a bunch of movies like Mo Tse did, he's not the best actor but he's a very entertaining one. Seriously, the choreography in this movie is through the roof.

I would love to see the rest of his films some time in the future, because if I enjoyed Iron Protector as much as I did I would surely love to see other films he made.

Maybe it's nostalgia, maybe it's because I'm a sucker for this kind of movie, but I couldn't find a single bone in me that could hate on Iron Protector. I would just like to give a word of advice, go into this film like it's one you'd see on TV and not one you would go to the theater for.

That's all for this month, Love and Peace!