Film

Bodyguard Kiba 2

A 1973 Japanese action film where Sonny Chiba plays an ex-con bodyguard navigating the criminal underworld of a gangster-filled nightclub. It's pure kinetic violence and morally compromised characters, shot with the grit and style that made 70s action cinema so vital. For fans of brutal, no-frills crime cinema and martial arts without sentiment.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like yakuza-era crime pictures where a stone-faced lone fighter cuts through a nightclub full of gangsters, with brutal, stylised action and a lean 89-minute run that never wastes a frame.

Skip it if you want a slow build, layered subplots or characters who change much; this one is blunt, violent and built around one hard man's physical presence rather than psychology.

What it asks of you: It runs a brisk ninety minutes and moves quickly between scuffles and standoffs, so it asks for your attention in bursts rather than sustained patience.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Bodyguard1992

Whitney Houston's presence and a genuinely effective romantic thriller about protection and vulnerability. Schwarzenegger-style bodyguard action but with real emotional stakes and one of cinema's most iconic songs.

But The plot is fairly predictable, and the dialogue leans heavily on 90s melodrama that hasn't aged as gracefully as the action sequences.

The Bodyguard poster

Kill Bill: Vol. 12003

Tarantino's love letter to 70s action cinema, with Sonny Chiba himself in the cast. Elaborate action choreography, bold visual style, and a protagonist with legitimate revenge motivations driving every frame.

But The structure is deliberately fragmented, the violence is extreme and stylised rather than realistic, and it's unapologetically a revenge fantasy with little moral ambiguity.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 poster

Branded to Kill1967

Seijun Suzuki's surreal yakuza noir about an assassin caught between warring factions. Visually audacious, genuinely strange, with a pulp energy that feels lived-in rather than performed.

But The narrative is deliberately obtuse and dreamlike; you have to surrender to mood over clarity, and some sequences feel self-consciously arty.

Branded to Kill poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Bodyguard Kiba 2

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

'Round Midnight1986

Both are lean, unglamorous crime thrillers made outside the mainstream system, where violence is a tool rather than spectacle, and bodyguarding/survival is morally compromised work.

A proto-indie noir about street hustlers and small-time criminals in LA's underbelly, shot with guerrilla aesthetics and real desperation. It's what happens when action cinema gets made on almost no budget, with only conviction to spare.

But The technical quality is genuinely rough—muddy image, poor sound design—and the narrative meanders. This requires patience and a tolerance for aesthetic roughness as part of its charm.

'Round Midnight poster
More like this (7)

City Hunter1993

Jackie Chan as a hired gun operating in Hong Kong's criminal underworld. Explosive action with Chan's trademark physical comedy, creating something that's both thrilling and surprisingly fun.

But The tonal shifts between action and comedy don't always land smoothly, and the plot is largely an excuse to get from one set piece to the next.

City Hunter poster

Gomorrah2008

A Neapolitan crime epic showing the everyday brutality of Mafia operations through interconnected stories. Unflinching, politically conscious, with documentary-style realism that makes violence matter.

But It's deliberately unglamorous and morally exhausting; there are no heroes, and the pacing is slow and deliberate rather than propulsive.

Gomorrah poster

Black Lizard1968

A dizzyingly stylish Japanese crime-caper featuring a female master thief. Bold production design, theatrical energy, and a queer sensibility that was radical for its time; wildly entertaining.

But The camp aesthetic and theatrical performances feel very much of their era; if you want grounded realism, this will seem too stylised.

Black Lizard poster

Bullet in the Head1990

John Woo's Vietnam War action epic about three friends caught between friendship and survival. Epic scope, operatic emotion, and some of the most elegant gunplay ever filmed.

But It's nearly two and a half hours long, incredibly violent, and the tragic arc is relentless—it prioritises emotional devastation over catharsis.

Bullet in the Head poster

Lady Snowblood1973

A visually stunning Japanese revenge film with a female assassin and a colour palette that anticipates Tarantino by decades. Graceful violence and a character driven by pure vengeance.

But The narrative is fairly straightforward and episodic; it's as much visual poem as plot-driven thriller, which some will find slow.

Lady Snowblood poster

The Informant!2009

Both use their protagonist's fall from respectability as the story's engine. Kiba falls into crime; the protagonist here is already complicit. Both explore what happens when you're trapped between worlds that don't want to let you go.

A comedy-thriller about a corporate whistleblower starring Matt Damon. Surprisingly funny, structurally innovative, and genuinely interested in how an ordinary person gets tangled in the machinery of organised crime.

But The tonal mixture of comedy and corporate crime thriller is unconventional; Damon's character is deeply unlikeable, and the film asks you to empathise with someone actively making things worse.

The Informant! poster

Caveat2021

The core transaction—hiring someone to guard an unmarked secret—drives both films. But where Kiba is explosive kinetics, Caveat is paranoid atmosphere. Same job, completely opposite cinema.

A horror film about a man hired to guard a woman on a desolate island. Deeply unsettling, gorgeously shot in black and white, with slow-burn dread and practical effects that feel genuinely wrong.

But It's deliberately paced, verging on static; it relies on mood and implication rather than action or explanation, which will test patience aggressively.

Caveat poster

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Recommended by

Karate Bear Fighter, The Bodyguard from Beijing