KCR: The Defender / Bodyguard from Beijing (movie, action)

Essentially Chinese copy of "The Bodyguard" (starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston), The Defender (also known as "Bodyguard from Beijing") stars Jet Li as a highly trained bodyguard for the Chinese government tasked to protect girlfriend of a businessman residing in Hong Kong. He has two Hong Kong police to help him to protect the girl from possible assassination because she witnessed a murder. He was forced to kill a whole boatload of assassins in a mall. One of those dead was godbrother to one of the best assassins. The assassin, ex-Chinese army special forces, vowed revenge, and there will be a big show down attack vs. defend, gun play and martial arts...

Set before Hong Kong was returned to Chinese control, there was a bit of rivalry between Chinese "cop" and the Hong Kong cops. This one, being somewhat G-rated, cuts down on the bad puns and R-rated jokes and double entenderes. However, the cops are basically treated as jokes, with one cop who can't even tell that his gun was swapped with a water pistol. Also, the various explosions are just spliced together... you don't actually see something blow up. Jet Li have played this completely straight, dialing down his charm to almost zero.

As standard action affair, this movie doesn't really have much to recommend it other than Jet Li's fighting and gunplay. The big fight with the bad guy is pretty good.

All in all, may be worth a rental.

Rating: rent it