Once upon a time, Sonny Chiba starred in a film adaptation of Bodyguard Kiba, a popular manga by Ikki Kajiwara. Chiba played the titular Kiba, who offers his services to anyone willing to expose crime and corruption. Perhaps, with Kiba’s protection, his clients will live long enough to see justice done.
As happened quite frequently with movies and TV shows from overseas, an American distributor got ahold of the rights, and released a bastardized version here in the States. Bodyguard Kiba became The Bodyguard; the name of Kiba’s character was changed to ‘Sonny Chiba,’ so the flick now features Sonny Chiba playing Sonny Chiba; and ten minutes of new footage shot in Times Square, that has nothing to do with the rest of the film, was added at the beginning. Oh, and the film opens with a reading of Ezekiel 25:17, just like Jules Winnfield says it early in Pulp Fiction, misquote and all. (The more genre films from the 1970s I see, the more I see where Quentin Tarantino found his influence. In fact, it seems as if his entire career has been remaking the movies he saw in his adolescence, bringing a high sheen to exploitation cinema. But, that’s an article for another day.)
The film proper, directed by Ryuichi Takamori, sees Chiba foil a hijacking on a flight to Tokyo. In a presser afterwards Chiba makes his vow of protection to anyone willing to fight crime. His offer is taken up by Reiko Miwa (Mari Atsumi), who has found herself caught between both the Yakuza and the Mafia (Italians must have been in short 
supply in 1973 Tokyo, as all Mafia mobsters are played by Japanese, which only adds to this flick’s shitty bona fides).
Reiko has a secret. She knows about a shipment of heroin being smuggled into the country by American servicemen. At the insistence of her lover, Takami (Ryohei Uchida), they seize the heroin and try to play the Yakuza against the Mafia. Chiba, of course, is caught up in all of this, trying to protect Reiko while she keeps putting herself in danger. This all leads to much ass kicking.
Sonny Chiba kicks ass left and right in this movie. He kicks ass up and down. He kicks a guy so hard in the stomach that the guy’s teeth fall out. Sonny Chiba is so skilled at martial arts that when a bad guy points a gun at him Sonny grabs his hand and karate chops the gun so hard it fires and kills more bad guys. He kicks ass on rooftops and at ground level. He kicks so much ass that there isn’t any time for character development more complicated than his ever-present scowl, nor is any required.
In fact, there isn’t any depth to this movie at all. It’s a vehicle to showcase Sonny Chiba in raw simplicity, spat out to exploit his fame. The grist mill was so efficient in Japan at the time that a sequel to Bodyguard Kiba was released that same year.
There’s nothing complex or all that memorable about The Bodyguard. It’s a showcase of trash cinema from overseas, and how cheap distributors package material for an American audience that knows just about nothing of the world beyond the oceans. It will scratch a viewer’s shitty movie itch, then fade away into the obscure recesses of memory, unworthy of more permanent retention. But, for a little under an hour and a half, one gets to watch Sonny Chiba at his most Chiba-ist. The Bodyguard takes over the #231 spot in the Watchability Index from Country Blue.