previously published on Asian Movie Pulse
Oh, the Italians… They take the genre or genres that are not native to their cinema, put a twist on it and – it somehow works! More than that, it sports its own style. They did it with spaghetti westerns and giallo pulp, so why they would not try the same thing with the Kung Fu flicks. Spaghetti or noodles, it is just a matter of taste, right? And, truth to be told, many “outsiders” tried their luck with Asian-style martial arts-powered action, from Gareth Evans to Timo Tjahjanto, and their efforts were far from embarrassing.
Enter the Italian actor and filmmaker Gabriele Mainetti who already flirted with the Asian-sourced sub-genres with his 2015 They Call Me Jeeg Robot and his vision of the “old-school-new-school” countdown between the mob dinosaurs and the triads newcomers on the streets of Rome. Forbidden City was released to selected theatres without a flashy festival premiere, but it was nevertheless selected for the Horizons section of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
The Fujian-based Xiao family has two daughters, thus violating the one-child policy in the late 20th century China. While the older sister Yun can live a life worth of a human being, the younger Mei has to remain hidden from the authorities. The only thing Mei is superior to her sister are the Kung Fu studies provided by their father. Nevertheless, the bond between the sisters is exceptionally strong: one would do everything for another.
Twenty or so years later, we see Mei (Liu Yaxi) in a dimly-lit basement “auditioning” for the position of a stripper in a clandestine establishment. But she has not fallen from grace, she is on the mission to find Yun and for that, she is ready to fight her way up the hierarchy. The first surprise comes just around the corner, after the first and the most majestic fight sequence: it turns out that the establishment with the restaurant as a front, with brothel in the back and a set of underground tunnels underneath is not somewhere in China, but in Rome and the title of the film comes from the name of the restaurant.
Acting on an info, Mei continues her rampage to an Italian restaurant which is just that – a restaurant and attacks its cook, the owner’s son Marcello (Enrico Borello). As it turns out, Yun (Ye Haijin), who worked as a prostitute ran away with the restaurateur Alberto (Luca Zingaretti) and that scandal could break a fragile peace between the oldschool mobster Annibale (Marco Giallini) and the triads lead by the ambitious Mr Wang (Chunyu Shanshan of Kung Fu Vampire fame). When the two lovers are eventually found dead, it seems that the gang war is imminent, while Mei must go down the road of vengeance. However, she starts developing feelings for Marcello.
Forbidden City works best in its furious first third where Mainetti and his co-writers Stefano Bises and Davide Serino establish the stakes in the conflict for each characters, but also set the stage for a fight sequence every now and then. On the purely directorial terms, the style Mainetti goes for is not strictly Asian, with a highlight on choreography shot in wide shots and meticulously edited, but more modern and usually employed in the contemporary American and European productions. That means shaky cam by the cinematographer Paolo Carnera and rapid editing done by Francesco Di Stefano. It serves the purpose nevertheless, due to the rich set designs by Andrea Castorina that highlight the difference between the “worlds”, but also to the athleticism and acrobatics of Liu Yaxi who started her movie career as a stunts performer in the live-action remake of Mulan (2020).
The fall is imminent in the middle section, and it is even more felt due to the change of genre setup. Forbidden City changes gears from the Kung Fu action to a gangster epic spiced up with a little romance. It holds up on its own terms, but the difference between the genres is simply too great for them to be possible to bridge in an elegant way. Mainetti would eventually stir the helm back to the starting point, genre-wise, and conjure the final battles in a satisfactory manners, but the bitter taste of the previous time-wasting cannot be rinsed that easily. One plot twist too many adding some more minutes to the eventual runtime of 138 minutes does not help much either.
However, it does not ruin the fun of watching this interesting, pulpy, but also quite stylish flick. Forbidden City is a rare “creature” on the festival circuit and, as such, it deserves the interest, the love and the applause more than it deserves harsh criticism. It is definitely something of a new and fresh mix, albeit it is not as profound and epic as its filmmaker would want it to be.