City under Siege

全城戒备

Hong Kong/China, 2010, colour, 2.35:1, 110 mins.

Director: Chen Musheng 陈木胜 [Benny Chan].

Rating: 4/10.

First China-shot mutant action movie has OK effects but is kneecapped by a ridiculous script.

STORY

Malaya, Aug 1945. During the final days of WWII, scientists at a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp are conducting biological experiments on prisoners to create super-warriors. When they double the dosage on one prisoner, he morphs into a human beast and starts killing his fellow-prisoners, but at that moment the camp is destroyed by bombing. Malaysia, the present day. Li Fei, stage name Sunny (Guo Fucheng), works as a clown at the circus of Uncle Da (Yuan Hua), who raised him after his father’s death. Li Fei has always wanted to be a knife thrower, like Zhang Dachu (Zou Zhaolong) and his wife Yao Li (Zhang Baowen), but Uncle Da has always forbidden him as he’s slightly simple. One night Li Fei spots Zhang Dachu, Yao Li and three others from the circus secretly investigating an underground cavern reputed to contain Japanese gold, and gets forced into joining them. They discover the gold but also get contaminated by gas canisters left over from the WWII experiments that starts a morphing process on their bodies. During their escape to Hong Kong, Li Fei is thrown overboard but survives, washing up in a Hong Kong fishing village, where he’s given a lift into the city by star CSS News TV reporter Chen An’er (Shu Qi). Hong Kong is undergoing a series of robberies by Zhang Dachu and his gang, who now have super-powers, and two experts in supernatural criminal cases – Sun Hao (Wu Jing) and his fiancee Cheng Xiuhua (Zhang Jingchu) – have come from China to assist the local police. When Chen An’er resigns her job after being threatened with downgrading because of a lawsuit, she accidentally witnesses Li Fei using his super-powers to free a hostage, and decides to get her revenge on her previous employer by creating a media star out of him. When Zhang Dachu & Co. hear about Li Fei, they decide to track him down to find out how he has managed to retain a normal exterior, as they themselves are all evolving into grotesque mutants as their powers grow.

REVIEW

City under Siege 全城戒备 is several notches above Future X-Cops 未来警察 (2010) in its action sequences and effects – despite an over-reliance on wire work – but at least one below in its script, which is just about serviceable at a pulp level but falls flat on its face when it tries to add character or emotions to its cut-out characters. Taiwan actress Shu Qi 舒淇, as the only normal person among the leads, brings some welcome lightness to the movie with her usual laid-back insouciance, but falls victim to the scriptwriters whenever her TV reporter gets serious about love and relationships. Hong Kong’s Guo Fucheng 郭富城 [Aaron Kwok], who has played both simpletons and heroes in the past, is convincing here in neither role, and at his best in a brief middle segment where he becomes a media darling in Hong Kong’s celebrity culture – a witty idea that unfortunately isn’t developed. Taiwan martial artist Zou Zhaolong 邹兆龙 [Collin Chou] (Fearless 霍元甲, 2006; Flash Point 导火线, 2007) is fine as ever as the villain, but Mainlanders Wu Jing 吴京 and Zhang Jingchu 张静初 seem out of place in a basically Hong Kong fantasy-action movie, despite the writers trying to beef up their roles.

The fact that it’s never explained how Wu and Zhang’s characters acquired semi-super-powers themselves is just one of the several potholes in the movie, which is closer to the level of the Gen-X Cops 特警新人类 duo (1999-2000) than the much better structured Connected 保特通话 (2008) in the variable career of Hong Kong director Chen Musheng 陈木胜 [Benny Chan]. When the action gets going – and especially in a humorous fight in the TV reporter’s warehouse flat and in the highway finale – City under Siege is okay pulp film-making, with acceptable prosthetics and visual effects. For the rest, it’s a let-down from a director with 20 years’ experience who’s proved he can occasionally do much better (Divergence 三岔口, 2005; Connected). There’s also no sense throughout of a whole city being either under siege (English title) or on emergency alert (Chinese).

CREDITS

Presented by Shanxi Film Studio (CN), Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Universe Entertainment (HK), Shenzhen Film Studio (CN), Guangzhou Ying Ming Media (CN). Produced by Sirius Pictures International (HK).

Script: Benny Chan, Ling Zhimin, Liu Shangran. Photography: Pan Yaoming [Anthony Pun]. Editing: Chen Musheng [Benny Chan], Chen Shengren. Music: Chu Zhendong [Anthony Chue]. Production design: Zhang Shuping [William Chang]. Art direction: Zhuang Guorong. Costume design: Lei Fengshan. Action: Ma Yucheng, Li Zhongzhi [Nicky Li]. Visual effects: Huang Hongda (Menfond Electronic Art & Computer Design).

Cast: Guo Fucheng [Aaron Kwok] (Li Fei/Sunny), Shu Qi (Chen An’er/Angel), Zou Zhaolong [Collin Chou] (Zhang Dachu), Wu Jing (Sun Hao), Zhang Jingchu (Cheng Xiuhua), Yuan Hua (Uncle Da), Huang Zhixian (Tang, police inspector), Jiang Ruolin (Chen An’er’s TV replacement), Yin Ziwei [Terence Yin] (Kai, Angel’s producer-boyfriend), Tie Nan (Liu Zhenxing), Zhang Baowen (Yao Li), Gao Yanchao (He Jun), Su Mingxi (Zhang Tiegen), Liu Li (reporter), Zhou Xiuna (Youyou), Zhao Juncheng (Chen, police inspector), He Shangqian (Jie, Anna’s cameraman), Li Baihuan (Brian), Tan Junhao (young Li Fei/Sunny).

Release: China, 6 Aug 2010; Hong Kong, 12 Aug 2010.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 1 Sep 2010.)