Protection Detail

Protection Detail is a generally well made indie American Triad gangster film that wears its influences on its sleeve. In large part, the film owes a heavy debt to Johnnie To's 1999 Hong Kong crime masterpiece The Mission. While they do say to "steal from the best", there are some beats that play a little too similar to said earlier film which is always a risk for a film of this size to take considering it draws the fire of inevitable comparisons (fair or unfair) to a bigger movie many consider classic. That said, the movie is by no means a remake and shows off plenty of its own courage and ambition. Director Michael Fredianelli deserves praise for insisting on an entirely Asian-American cast and keeping the action mostly confined to San Francisco's Chinatown. It doesn't go for any safe "fish out of water" tropes and instead works to immerse the viewer in a culture and community very much present within the US, but seldom explored without compromise in American cinema.

As it goes, there are a few glaring flaws present in the film such as strangely unprofessional hitmen bad guys, a sloppily staged gun skirmish or two, and some other leaps in logic. However, action is one of director Fredianelli's strong suits and he makes up for some of these lesser realized moments by delivering in spades during some of the film's other set pieces-- one such highlight being a well choreographed warehouse shootout heavily inspired by the work of director John Woo.

The movie's actors headlining the film should also be commended as Boynton Paek excels as the unhinged bodyguard called Knife and Michael Nosé proves excellent as the loyal soldier type nicknamed Pinball. James Aaron Oh is another standout playing a rather sinister villain with a vicious nature and commanding presence. While it might not be directly on par with all its influences, Protection Detail is a solid indie crime film with plenty of flavor that ends on one hell of a bang.

Decades after the the height of Japanese Yakuza film and Hong Kong triad-focused actioners comes this surprise low budget American take on the material by Bay Area filmmaker Michael Fredianelli. Fredianelli obviously loves cinema of the 1970's with his prior film LONGEST RUN much in line with the era's road chase movies. Here he gets to follow in John Woo and Kinji Fukasaku's footsteps albeit with mixed results mostly due to budgetary restraints, some mixed quality performances, and a somewhat under-cooked storyline.

There's two plots going on at once; a "Romeo and Juliet" setup in which a bodyguard falls in love with his boss's daughter who he's protecting. Meanwhile there's an on-and-off gang war between his boss Uncle Wu and the rival boss's named Sonny. Uncle Wu brings in 3 top-tier bodyguards from Hong Kong (including "Romeo") who seem to have little problem taking down wave after wave of hit men. It's amazing Sonny has any luck at all hiring new talent into his gang considering its extremely high attrition rate, but of course that means the hitters he employs generally aren't cream of the crop. Their insanely incompetent tactics include night attacks with lit cigarettes, lying down to snipe from unprotected gravel beds, and using the exact same tree for cover multiple times even after it didn't stop bullets before. Whether these tactics are intentionally incompetent or just rushed directorial choices I leave to you to decide, but personally I would have enjoyed it more had the gang warfare felt more competitive.

Strangely enough, the Romeo and Juliet subplot isn't as center stage as one would think, leaving this film to grasp at a real protagonist until late in the film. At that point I couldn't tell if my perception of his motivations were even set up deliberately. A few things would have really helped here, which would be to cut down the Romeo subplot to focus on Pinball's character a little more. Everyone else gets a bit too obvious of a motivation while his is far too subtle to make him relatable.

Another strange plot development is how Uncle Wu settles the situation with his daughter. The film really misses out on a great opportunity to show Wu desperately try to cover up the fiasco to save both his business and daughter from a horrible scandal. Instead, it goes for shocks with a sudden and somewhat ludicrous resolution to the whole affair which leaves his character looking unemotionally ruthless to the point of being a cartoon character.

Granted, a few of the action sequences stand with some of the best from Hong Kong in the 90's, including a massacre in a Chinese Restaurant, a foot chase through Chinatown, and a well done warehouse shootout that could have used an extra bad guy or two. Actor James Aaron Oh really stands out as a the enemy underboss in a charismatic and scary "loose cannon" way that we haven't seen much of since the early days of John Lone. Don't be surprised to see more from this actor in the future. Unfortunately the actor playing his employer Sonny doesn't exude any menace at all, along with the rest of his nominally antagonistic gang. As far as the rest of the performances, most are fine with the weak links being Wu's daughter and the guy who plays his underboss Bennie. The actor oddly portrays his nominally dominant character as confused, whiny and effeminate which makes him a little difficult to buy as an organized crime figure or a killer.

Since the film has such a focus on Chinese-American diaspora, the clashing of traditions and organized crime, it would have come off far more authentic had the actors traded a few lines back and forth in Mandarin or Cantonese. As it is, not a single character in the film (including those supposedly imported from Hong Kong) even sports a non-American accent, leaving me to believe all the actors were Americans and very few of them even play as Chinese. I am not complaining from an ethnic identity standpoint, as I believe actors can play a wide variety of national origins, but any non-alignment in identity-focused casting can be overcome with the kind of effortful performances that the film generally doesn't attempt. This general air of artificiality renders most of the dialog scenes and characterization hollow and ultimately difficult to enjoy as much as the action scenes.

Chinese gang war in San Francisco; three talented bodyguards imported from China for the "good side". Fine premise. Terrible execution.

Too much stiff and pointless dialog. Too many moments in which characters belie their personae with stupid actions (a few already mentioned here under Goofs). The imported trio of players could have thrived in a better script if given the chance. The only good thing is that the lousy way it ended was not as hard to swallow as if it had been tagged onto a better film.