The Bodyguard Thailand Full Movie With English Subtitles

[Lorriane Nasuti]

Actioncomedy is a subgenre that eastern cinema has intermittently excelled at, notably in the films of Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow. Between them this hallowed pair have set the bar at an intimidating height, combining jaw-dropping action and laugh-out-loud humour with a deftness that ensures that one element does not detract from the other. The Bodyguard has aspirations in both camps but starts in action mode, as the title character (Wongkamlao) fights a gun battle with a small army of would-be assassins, while a bald reporter continues to broadcast under a table without tonal change, signalling the direction the film will later take. Bullets fly, wires spin Wongkamlao through the air, and squibs explode all over the shop, but it's all rather run-of-the-mill, sub-John Woo stuff, the meat of any number of Hong Kong or even recent Korean police action thrillers.

This sets the tone for the rest of the film, where the action is efficient but undistinguished and increasingly gives way to wildly uneven comedic elements that sometimes spring jarringly out of nowhere, creating the impression of a film that is not sure quite what it wants to be. The plot provides few clues. With his father murdered, the son of a wealthy and well-connected family inherits his sizeable business interests. After a botched kidnap attempt by the gangsters who killed his father, the son finds shelter with a family in the city's slum district, where he falls for a local girl and learns a little humility after visiting the under-funded local school. Hiding his wealthy background, he uses his money to help the people, not realising that he is being hunted by a bodyguard who is looking to protect him from the pursuing gangsters.

This rich boy/poor girl sub-plot may seem to western audiences to be bordering on parody (especially as is plays out here), but straight-faced sugary sentimentality is a regular component of eastern action cinema (even the impressively low key approach of Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak's 2002 Infernal Affairs tumbled briefly down this road on the death of a key character). Even with this in mind, the narrative flow of these scenes is sometimes a little shambolic. Oddball elements come and go with abandon, the gangster with the penchant for daft costumes prompting his companions to behave with increasingly outlandish stupidity, effectively nullifying the threat they are supposed to represent. Which would be fine if they were actually funny.

But now and again it all comes close to working rather well: Wongkamlao emerging from the swimming pool into which he has jumped to encounter his would-be killer, who has just missed the pool but landed in a threatening pose; his subsequent naked pursuit through busy city streets (although Wongkamlao can't resist a face/arse gag); the twin assassins whose appearance is marked by birds in stylistic slow motion flight; the man who turns up to deliver heartfelt poetry whenever someone is struck by misfortune; Wongkamlao's hypnotically daft kung-fu dancing in the climactic fight. At the end of the film the fourth wall is kicked down as the loud-dressing gangster is driven off complaining about the size of his part and demanding to speak to the director. This self-referencing does provide the film with its most amusing scene, as a Muay Thai-fighting supermarket customer played by Tony Jaa refers to Petchtai Wongkamlao by the character name he had in Ong-Bak, and is rudely informed that he's talking about the wrong film.

The pace is breezy enough, and if comedy is in the funny bone of the beholder then for some the film may strike, if not gold then at least a tarnished bronze (it was certainly a big hit in its native Thailand). But if this release is trading on the success of Ong-Bak then it's that film's fans who will likely comprise its potential audience. It's certainly worth a look, but with Kung-Fu Hustle still doing the rounds, Stephen Chow is in absolutely no danger of losing his action-comedy crown just yet.

Two soundtracks are on offer, 5.1 and DTS. The DTS track is slightly louder, but also has better LFE bass and crisper trebles. Both use the sound stage impressively, especially in the shoot-outs. Explosions on the DTS track sent a bass thunder out that made my sofa tremble.

The Making of The Bodyguard (12:57) is a fairly standard EPK, consisting of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the main participants at a press launch. It's framed 4:3 but the lower quarter of the screen is obliterated by logos, so the subtitles have to sit at the top. It's in less than pristine shape and fairly artefact-riddled, but still watchable and of mild interest.

[Aun, known in the ring as Kongsuriya Narupai and on his birth certificate as Buncha Taparsa, began studying Muay Thai at age 10 in his home province of Ranong. He has racked up an estimated 100 fights in his career. Aun is now 27.]

After I retired from fighting, I joined the military. That's how it goes for men in Thailand; when you turn 21, it's like a lottery and they pick you or they don't pick you. Only some are eligible, like if you have glasses or are disabled in some way, you can't be a soldier. The ones who are eligible are made to choose a color, red or black, and if you pick red, you have to do two years in the military. I picked red.

They sent me to southern Thailand where they have problems all the time. My duty was to talk to people in the village, try to help them understand why the military came to their province, to protect them and not to hurt them. Southern Thailand still has problems. They try to have their own country and their own culture, lots of Muslims there.

I heard gunshots everyday but was never involved. I was involved in bombings, though. Cooking gas explosions happened three times. I was near them but I was safe every time. People were killed, yes, but thankfully no one in my department or my friends.

After my military service, I went back to Muay Thai. Worked as at trainer for a few months in Hong Kong, then went over to FA Group in Bangkok, to Wat Charoenrit in Koh Phangan. FA Group used me as a training partner for some of their other fighters, but I wasn't a full-fledged trainer, so that's part of why I took the new job in Koh Phangan. I didn't have problems with any of my gyms; I just moved to find better opportunities.

A lot of my fighter-friends went to Macau. They would tell me all about it. They're the reason I got the job. They called and asked me to work with them. Bodyguard work, they told me. If the boss wants a new bodyguard, he tells his other bodyguards, who are mostly former fighters, to ask their friends.

So I thought about it for two weeks, then decided to go. I was able to leave Thailand immediately. The boss I was about to protect was mafia, and he was able to help with visas and sort all that out easily. I went in February 2014, stayed one year and 10 months total.

My job duties as a bodyguard were exactly like what you see in the movies. When the boss goes to dinner, we bodyguards go with him and just stand there close by. There was no special training once I arrived. They said as long as you can fight, you can do this job.

Working hours depended on my boss. If he didn't go anywhere, I would stay at the office waiting for him, or wait at home for him to call. Sometimes the boss would pick me up at home. I earned 50,000 to 60,000 baht a month, and of course tips from the boss and his friends.

Sunday was my day off. I did whatever I wanted, sometimes touristy stuff in Macau, but mostly I liked to stay home, cook and relax. I was never really one for casinos or bars, never liked partying. I wanted to save money instead.

My boss was Chinese, somewhere in his fifties. We spoke Cantonese to each other. The boss had a legal business, a five-star hotel in Macau and China, and casinos too. He also had an illegal money-lending business, lending to people with a really high interest rate. I knew he was doing illegal activities because I was with him all the time, when he was doing his shady dealings. He didn't try to hide it from me, either. Everyone in Macau knows that the people who have bodyguards are probably doing something illegal. They know the rich people are mafia because they buy everyone. Macau used to belong to Portugal, so there's corruption everywhere. They've been independent for a while and still have corruption, like police taking money.

I would get this anxious feeling every time we drove around. I was worried someone would shoot us in the car. Think about it: cars aren't safe. If you're in a car, you can't fight. I would have these bad thoughts about people shooting us from a long distance, like snipers, or a truck hitting our car and ramming it over a bridge, on purpose or by accident. I think I was afraid of this because I'd heard stuff like that had happened a long time ago, before I worked there. My boss's car was bulletproof, but every time we would go somewhere, we had to search under the car for bombs. My boss had bodyguards just to watch the car; we took turns. The boss had seven or eight of us working just for him. Sometimes we'd work together, and everyone had his own duty.

All the big bosses were friends, like a group of 10 heads of companies, and they all had Thai bodyguards. And sometimes when they wanted to fight, they'd fight with another group that hired Chinese bodyguards. But sometimes things got out of hand. It was well known that if you beat someone to death and go to jail, your boss can't help you but he can help your family, send your salary back to them. So they did help.

None of that ever happened to me, but it happened to Thai bodyguards I knew. I heard of one case like that. Fifteen years in jail for killing a policeman, and all 10 people involved went to jail. Doesn't matter who actually did it. They all went to jail. But the bosses still sent money back to the families. I heard the policeman was killed accidentally. Their boss had told his bodyguards, "This policeman did something bad to me. Go give him a lesson." But it got out of hand.

3a8082e126