Writer: Ezekiel Lee Zhiang Yang

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Watch this if you liked: "Kungfu Cyborg”, “Future X-Cops”, “X-Men”

It's largely American "X-Men" meets Chinese "Future X-Cops" in this uncomfortable yet fairly entertaining Hong Kong actioner that certainly contains more drama than what the 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 during WWII occupation and spins a mutant story with heroes and villains, mostly in fat suits, clown suits or any other futuristic-looking PVC apparel, as long as they look more advanced than Streetfighter characters. We follow a bumbling 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").

The balance between CGI and traditional FX isn't very comfortable in this movie, especially coming 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 humourous interjections (Aaron Kwok's obsession with being "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 being visually bamboozled with various CGI oddities.

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.

Back to the movie, "City Under Siege" feels more "Ultraman" than "Rumble In The Bronx" but you can be assured you won't feel shortchanged if you're looking for an action movie with Chinese stars

Cinema Online, 12 August 2010