As many have already pointed out, this film contains possibly the most inept action-scene camera-work in cinema history. Which is a great pity, because otherwise it has the makings of a Chiba classic. Sonny plays himself, holding a press conference announcing to the World that he intends to rid Japan of the drug trade single handed, and then chops an unopened bottle of Coca Cola in half to demonstrate what the drug dealers have got coming to them. Meanwhile an Italian Mafia Don and his henchmen are gunned down on the steps of a Cathedral by the "Yellow Mafia" (as they are referred to in the film). However his Asian girlfriend is still alive and somehow she is the only person who knows the details of the drug connection between USA and Japan. She wants to pick up the drug shipment her boyfriend had already paid for, then sell the drugs and keep the money for herself. The Mafia and the "Yellow Mafia" want to find her and get the drugs without paying for them. Later three colourful independent thugs, who run a bar-brothel frequented by some of the other characters, get wind of the deal and try to muscle in. The girlfriend decides to take up Sonny's offer of protection and try to manipulate him using her womanly wiles. By the B movie standards prevalent in 1970s Kung Fu movies that is a great plot. Unfortunately, it's all spoiled beyond redemption by the atrocious camera work and editing of the action scenes, which are plentiful but uniformly dreadful. Local colour scenes go on too long, action scenes are too short and incoherent.
On the plus side, there is one nice "artistic" shot of Sonny's female assistant left lying naked in a cruciform position in the shadow of an actual church cross after an encounter with one faction of villains (I feared she was dead, but after examining her, Sonny quickly brings her back to life with a bit of Kung-Fu chiropactory!).
Another point of interest is that Sonny's morals are a bit more traditional in this pre-Streetfighter incarnation. For example, when the femme fatal offers herself to him he declines, telling her that he is not going to be fooled and manipulated by sex, whereas Streetfighter Chiba would have slept with her and then told her that he was not going to be fooled and manipulated by sex.
Personally, I enjoyed the tacked on American beginning with the now familiar Bible quote later used in Pulp Fiction, and the two martial artists comparing notes on Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba technique, although it had the effect of raising my hopes, only for them to be dashed during the first appallingly filmed action scene on the plane.
Review of The Bodyguard
