Slow moving, with spurts of swift kung fu action. The slowness reflects the early stages of dementia, when Ding understands that his memory is seriously fading: I might have called it The Fading Bodyguard. A neighbour's young girl, Cherry Li, looks to him for the stability she lacks with her separated and bickering parents. Her father, Li Zheng Jiu, steals a bag of gems from a Russian gang, to pay off a gambling debt to a Chinese gang, but realising that both sides then threaten his life, goes into hiding. The Chinese try to kidnap Cherry, ideally to find but at least hurt, her father, causing Ding to mentally recover enough to unleash his old kung fu skills to protect her. He looks upon her rather as a granddaughter. Years earlier he had lost a granddaughter, perhaps kidnapped, for which he never forgave himself-nor did his daughter for losing her daughter. Ding is a weary old man, fading away from memories. His landlady, Miss Park Seon Nun (once ideologically subtexted as 'Ms' Park, but otherwise as 'Miss' Park), wishes to care for Ding by marrying him. But few care for Ding as he drifts into dementia. After stunningly, and rather gorily, defeating the Chinese and Russian gangs, it seems that he has again been unable to protect a young girl in his charge, but there is a heart-warming end for him.
Review of My Beloved Bodyguard
