I watched the American version of this movie from the latest 6-Disc DVD release of a Sonny Chiba collection bought from the US. It was dubbed in English, and without any subtitles.

The movie starts out in New York nonetheless, the first scene was typical setting for a hit. The next scene would be totally unrelated to the whole movie, it was a discussion on how would Chiba and Bruce Lee compare as actioned out by two actors trying hard to imitate them.

The gritty rough face of Chiba here is I think a trademark from all his films, his dubbed voice however was not as tough as it Chiba would sound like. I think Americans wanted to release the movie with another movie to make it a Grindhouse feature presentation. As like Grindhouse movies, it has violence, nudity and terrible sequence of scenes that sometimes are overlong, or not important at all.

The Bodyguard had an interesting plot to work with, however it did not deliver, the scenes were below par, the lines were cheesy, and the action was disappointing for a Chiba film. This would not be the one I would recommend to a person just starting to watch Sonny Chiba's movies. I was good enough to rate with a 5/10 despite the movie's weak showing.