The Defender 中南海保镖 英语影评
Imagine Kevin Costner playing a martial arts master in The Bodyguard. That is the basic premise of The Defender, a sometimes spectacular, often uninspired Jet Li film that has been dubbed into English for a North American audience.
Li stars as John Chang, an elite bodyguard from the Chinese Red Army, sent to protect Michelle Yeung (Christy Chung), the only remaining living witness to a big murder case. Chang upsets Michelle immediately, as he invades her privacy and forces her into nearly complete seclusion. She does not see that Chang knows what he is doing and understands how dangerous her enemies are. In fact, Michelle is often willing to sacrifice her safety for mundane reasons such as wanting to go to the mall to buy new clothes.
Chang, on the other hand, takes his job seriously. He knows that as a bodyguard, he cannot fail to protect Michelle. If she is harmed, he does not get a second chance. He takes, from Michelle抯 perspective, extreme measures to ensure that she survives to testify. Surveillance cameras are mounted all around her home, bars are put on windows, all unneeded staff are bought out and sent away. Chang does his best to create a prison that Michelle cannot escape and her enemies cannot attack.
After a couple of close calls, Michelle抯 frustrations over her complete lack of freedom are replaced with warm, fuzzy feelings toward Chang. The romance angle appears far too conveniently. What if the Terminator got the girl? That is basically what Chang is a robot. His face never shows emotion, he rarely blinks and the martial arts moves he shows appear to be technically flawless nothing short of amazing.
Unfortunately, this leaves very little room for Chang抯 character to grow. The personality that he lacks is what normally makes a character interesting. Instead, he runs around the entire film, saving the damsel in distress without even stopping to eat or carry on a decent conversation.
Many Jet Li films are little more than fight scene after fight scene, with credits thrown in at the beginning and end, but not The Defender. There are disappointingly few scenes where Li struts his stuff as today抯 premier martial arts actor. The climactic battle at the film抯 end is strong, however much of the film is devoted to standard gun battles and watching Chang transform Michelle抯 home into an impenetrable fortress.
If an action film wants to have a storyline, that抯 great. But an action film with great promise can抰 afford to fail because its story follows a connect-the-dots mentality.
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