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Superslut and superhero.
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At a glance:
American X-Men are crossed with Chinese Future X-Cops
in uneasy yet fairly entertainin Hong Kong actioner that certainly contains more drama than what poster or title might suggest. In a modification of the usual themes we find in movies about post-war Nazi experiments, this
Benny Chan picture uses the prologue of fictional Japanese experiments in Malaysia durin WWII occupation and spins a mutant story with heroes and villains, mostly in fat suits, clown suits or any other futuristic-lookin PVC apparel, as long as they look more advanced than Streetfighter characters. In
City Under Siege (2010), we follow a bumblin simpleton named Sunny (
Aaron Kwok) who goes from circus clown to national hero in a bizarre turn of events that we’ll omit as spoilers.
Colin Chou (
Forbidden Kingdom) plays the arch nemesis, while
Shu Qi (
Gorgeous) gets a decent role as a beautiful TV news anchor. Meanwhile there are also Mr and Mrs Smith super agent roles for
Zhang Jing Chu (
Aftershock) and
Wu Jing (
SPL).
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| "Wow, I can see his ego from here." |
Bad news on the doorstep:
The balance between CGI and traditional FX isn’t very comfortable, especially comin from such an established filmmaker who
gave us the
Police Story movies with
Jackie Chan. As mentioned
earlier, it’s rather unusual that the movie does have a useful healthy
dose of emotional downtime and humorous interjections (
Aaron Kwok’s
obsession with bein “slim”) - this helps lift the mood for the
otherwise very overdone plot. More importantly, it’s possible that many
of the understated action scenes in this movie are actually quite
explosive but can’t find a comfortable place to engage the audience who
are bein visually bamboozled with various CGI oddities.
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| Aaron Kwok shouldn't have had that last murtabak. |
Perennial wonderment:
We must however single out
Aaron Kwok as being a much improved, very
competent and professional actor despite the flak he gets all these
years. In related observations,
Shu Qi’s Cantonese has improved fivefold
since the
Sex And Zen years while Mainlanders
Zhang Jing Chu and
Wu
Jing need better projects if they’re gonna break out of the B-movie
mould.
I can't remember if I cried:
This movie had Malaysian indie distributor NEF havin a go at organisin a big event with the HK stars in town. It was a circus.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Feels more
Ultraman than
Rumble In The Bronx but you're likely not to
feel shortchanged if you’re looking for an action movie with Chinese
stars.
★★1/2
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