Bodyguards and Assassins (2009) movie

Bodyguards and Assassins was the last movie I watched in 2009.

The Slog Reviews: 8.5/10. The plot of the movie (if you click the hyperlink above) is very simple. To give the founder of modern China, Sun Yat-Sen sufficient time to meet with the 13 leaders in China to plan an uprising to overthrow the Qing dynasty, a group of men risk, or rather, give their lifes to protect him. The story centers around a wealthy businessman with an only son, both of whom support Sun in their own ways. The businessman's involvement is only monetary and he objects vehemently when his son gets involved in the revolution (pamplet distribution etc) because of the son's tutor. He makes the tutor promise to keep his son safe. Unfortunately, the son has a will of his own. When it comes to choosing a decoy for Sun, the son participates and draws the short straw. The tutor refuses to let him be the decoy but the son challenges the tutor on the reasons for not letting him participate - merely because he is the son of this wealthy businessman? Then wouldn't this be against what the revolutionaries were trying to achieve which was democracy and equal rights? The tutor gives in and of course, the son is killed at the very end by the leader of the assassins (sent by the Qing dynasty) just as he was about to get away in the rickshaw. There are a lot of other sub-stories in the show too - the wealthy businessman's rickshaw driver who is the son's friend falls in love and is engaged to get married but gets killed protecting the son, the corrupt policeman who learns that he has a daughter by the fourth mistress of the wealthy businessman and also sacrifices his life to delay the leader of the assassins, the daughter of one of the revolutionaries who was killed by the assassins who gives up her life for the cause....you get the idea. Still, a pretty good movie all in all.