I recently watched the 2-hour 20-minute long Hong Kong film Bodyguards and Assassins on DVD, and have to say I loved it. For one, it had many of my favorite Hong Kong actors – Donny Yen, Simon Yam, Jackie Cheung, and Nicholas Tse (who became one of my favorites because of how well he acted his role), among others; the film also had some well-choreographed action scenes. The film is about the  preparations involved in protecting Sun Yat Sen during his two-hour long visit to Hong Kong in 1906 to plot with intellectuals the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, and the ensuing gauntlet of attempts on his life. Sun Yat Sen is the one Chinese leader both the Communist and the Nationalist Chinese agree on tried to do something good for all Chinese people. The entire film is explicit with the idea of Sun and his attempts to spread democracy throughout the Mainland in the final years of Empress Cixi’s reign. Cixi wants the former medical doctor dead dead dead. She sends a Qing official with illusions of grandeur and a mean kung fu kick to head up the legions of assassins who attempt to murder Sun and the rebellion before both are uncontrollable.

It’s a sad sad film that somehow made it through the censors in HK and on the Mainland, and is being very highly promoted (I saw clips of it played on a TV in a hyper-busy hyper-market just days before Spring Festival).

Definitely worth the watch. Viewer discretion advised: quite violent; bring your hankies.