Review: ‘The Bodyguard’ (1973)

Before getting into the meat of this review OF THE BODYGUARD it is necessary to clear up some confusion stemming from the remixed U.S. version. This exploitation actioner was released in the States three years after the original 1973 production appeared in Japan. The film is based on a manga series from author Ikki Kajiwara, which partly explains the exaggerated violence and stylized direction. This same source material provided inspiration for Takashi Miike’s two BODYGUARD KIBA films.

“I am offering myself as a bodyguard to anyone who knows anything about this ring of gangsters. I believe that there are people out there who want to help. I will protect you with this fist and together we will smash them.”

In 1973, BODYGUARD star Shinichi Chiba, or Sonny Chiba as he is better known internationally, was a big action star in Japan but remained undiscovered in the U.S. That changed in 1975 when THE STREET FIGHTER invaded grindhouse theaters. The violent karate movie was a sensation, in part for earning the infamous “X” rating largely for what was then considered extreme violence. Its producer, Toei, had succeeded in its mission to elevate its martial arts star to the level of international popularity that Bruce Lee had previously generated, at least among the genre faithful.

In an effort to capitalize on this success, American producer Terry Levene snagged rights to the similarly-violent BODYGUARD, shot a new intro sequence to play up the immense popularity of Sonny Chiba among grindhouse movie patrons, and released the film as VIVA CHIBA THE BODYGUARD in 1976 through his Aquarius Releasing company.

Perhaps guessing that target audiences of the day wouldn’t have cared less about who any of the actors or crew were besides Chiba himself, Aquarius threw away any reference to the real cast or crew and credited only the names associated with the American re-edit including American martial artists Aaron Banks and Bill Louie who both appear only in the brief intro. “Judy Lee” is the only actress credited but in reality the name doesn’t refer to anyone, either the film’s real female star Mari Atsumi or, as IMDb.com wrongly suggests, Taiwanese actress Chia Ling who is sometimes credited as Judy Lee.

Today, the most notable addition made by Aquarius is an opening quote that bastardizes an Old Testament passage in the Bible. Quentin Tarantino used this same passage from Ezekiel 25 for a memorable line by Samuel L. Jackson in PULP FICTION.

Genre fans have often criticized modern movie distributors like the Weinsteins for making alterations to Asian films for the American market but grindhouse peddlers like Aquarius Releasing were far more egregious in their shameless butchery of foreign films for quick profit.

Levene distributed a number of martial arts-related movies in the U.S., before and after THE BODYGUARD. The most notoriously bad of these was arguably the Bruceploitation mock-documentary FIST OF FEAR, TOUCH OF DEATH.

The original 1973 version of THE BODYGUARD has never been released in the U.S. and I am unaware of any available home video release in print, with or without English subtitles. As such, I can only discuss Aquarius Releasing’s remixed 1976 version re-released on DVD in its original widescreen format by BCI Eclipse in 2007.

Moving on