kluseba "City Under Siege" is an entertaining but sometimes strange mixture of a fantasy movie and an action-thriller with romantic elements as well as with slapstick influences and a more serious criticism of modern mass media.The movie portrays the story of the clumsy orphan Sunny who is working as a clown at his uncle's circus. His deceased father was a knife throwing master but Sunny is a charming loser who gets bullied by his more talented cousins who are also working at the circus. One day, his cousins want to explore a strange cave in the forest, used by the Japanese army when they occupied China. There are rumours of some precious gold hidden in the depths of the cave. Sunny overhears the plan and spies on his cousins but he gets discovered and caught. His cousins force the young adult to be the leader of the pack and look for the gold with them. The group finds several capsules indeed and force Sunny to open them. The first one is filled with gold and the leader of the cousins decides to separate the gold and to kill the unpleasant privy Sunny. He sends one of the cousins to strangle Sunny and push him into the abyss. Meanwhile the greedy leader opens another capsule but this one is filled with a strange gas that everyone present in the cave breathes in. Sunny manages to push his opponent into the abyss who dies there and to flee from his evil cousins. On their way out of the cave Sunny and his cousins get separated but they are mad at each other and bound to meet again. The strange gas soon transforms all of them. Sunny suddenly gets very fat as he runs across newscaster Angel who has a flat tire. They help each other and Sunny gets back to his uncle's warehouse. The next morning, he lost all of his fat and seems to be completely normal again. He soon realizes that he has changed though. All of his senses are sharpened and he soon uses them to save a kidnapped female police officer in front of newscaster Sunny who just got replaced by a younger and more beautiful woman at her agency. Both take advantage of the situation. Sunny becomes a beloved superstar and Angel his ambitious manager. Meanwhile, his evil cousins also transformed but in a different way. They also got sharpened senses but their skin bloated and they look like ugly mutants. Even kidnapped scientists can't heal them and believe that Sunny's metabolism must work differently from theirs. The evil cousins use their sharpened senses to commit crimes like robbing out banks and transporters. They are also jealous of Sunny's popularity and want to get his blood that might or might not be filled with antibodies that could heal the mutants. The police can't mess with them as injuries only seem to make These mutants stronger and more invulnerable. Even two mutant hunters who are supposed to get married soon can only kill one of them. They soon realize that they need the help of Sunny and Angel to set a trap and kill the pitiless mutants. The two men and women join their forces in a risky attempt to save Hongkong from its mutant siege.This fantasy-action movie has several convincing but also a few negative aspects. Let's start with the shallow aspects to end the review on a positive note. First of all, the mixture of genres in this movie is a little bit weird. The movie is sometimes too humorous to build up true tension. On the other side, some parts of it are too sad to make this a light-hearted film. I feel that the omission of the few slapstick elements would have improved the movie as the final result would have been much more mature. Due to the weird potpourri of genres, the movie undeniably has a few lengths. Some parts are dedicated to some character development but it feels a little bit forced as the different characters are sometimes wooden and stereotypical. They made me think of cheap rip-off versions of American superheroes and supervillains from Marvel for example.The actresses and actors were of a good average quality overall but as the script focused on fighting scenes and was inspired by several superhero movies they probably did the best they could out of it. Main actor Aaron Kwok incarnated a sympathetic loser who became a hero, the charming Qi Shu really carried the movie as ambitious newscaster with a tender side and Zhang Jingchu was also convincing as emotional and smart female demon hunter. I wish some of the other characters had been a Little bit more profound though.The special effects, fighting scenes and CGI effects are of a good but not excellent quality and can be cited as positive aspects of this film. Especially the villains look really ugly and could also be shown in an American movie. The fighting scenes finally had a more Asian feeling to it with a few influences from classic Easterns. Especially the fighting scenes in the uncle's warehourse, the television studio and in Angel's apartment were well done and can be cited as highlights of the movie.If you happen to be a fan of diversified superhero movies or more contemporary Hongkong action cinema, you should appreciate the movie for what it is. It's entertaining and some efforts were put into it but neither the effects nor the script offer anything revolutionary after all. All in all, it's a movie inspired by many Hollywood movies that should also please to a larger Western audience while fans of classic Asian action and fantasy cinema might surprisingly not like this film as much.

suite92 The film opens in a Japanese prison camp in Maylaysia, 1945. The Japanese experiment with chemistry to artificially produce a super soldier class so as to turn the tide in World War II. This fails and the bad stuff seems to be lost.In the present, Sunny is a buffoon in a traveling circus troupe, the Thundering Daggers. He fails at knife throwing, and does better as a clown. One night he goes with fellow troupe members to check whether a small group has found some gold. Sunny's fellow circus members knock out the gold hunters. Sunny falls down in the middle of the fight. When he gets his bearings, they recruit him for doing all the dangerous steps first. The find a bit of gold, but also release the chemicals that the Japanese experimented with.The thieves hop a boat for Hong Kong. Sunny falls into a fishing boat; he gets very hungry, eats some of the catch, and grows quite fat. The crew discover him and throw him overboard while out at sea near Hong Kong. In return for changing her tire, Sunny gets a ride home with Angel, who is a star reporter on CSS News on television. The mutated thieves stage a violent, showy, and very public attack. Two expert researchers (Suen Ho and Tai) are brought in by the police. Angel loses her job because her producer found a younger woman to sleep with. Sunny regains his usual shape the next morning. His Uncle Tak thinks Sunny is trouble. The Malaysian police blame the thieves in the troupe; Tak gets most of his possessions appropriated in recompense.Sunny goes to straighten all this out with the police. By chance he meets Angel outside the police station where a robber is holding a policewoman hostage. Sunny throws a stick through glass, then through the robber's hand. Sunny is lionized, and Angel helps him get away from the crowds. The mutated thieves see Sunny on TV, and are really angry, since Sunny recovered his normal shape, whereas they stay messed up. In fact, they are moving to a second stage. The attack soon enough, and Sunny is both quite skilled at fighting them, but sometimes also quite bad since he is unfamiliar with his mutant powers.The two researchers intervene. They also have usual abilities, but perhaps not enough to match the thieves. Sunny and the researchers eventually prevail. Sunny becomes the hero, and then a media star with Angel's help. The 'researchers' are just using Sunny as bait. More confrontations are to come, especially since the lead mutant wants to drink Sunny's blood to return to normal. In a major confrontation, Tai is killed. Sunny convinces Suen Ho to train him. Meanwhile, the mutants continue to evolve and unleash a reign of terror across the defenseless city. Angel has no idea whether Sunny is alive or dead.Who will win the final confrontation? Will Sunny find himself before the city is burned down? Will Sunny and Angel become more than business partners?------Scores------- Cinematography: 8/10 Almost always good-looking and well-shot. Sound: 5/10 The incidental music was reasonable for increasing tension. Unfortunately, in the dubbed version I watched, the translation was terrible. The subtitles did not match the spoken dubs most of the time. The sound of the voice was disinformation. Acting: 6/10 I liked the performances of the two principals, Aaron Kwok and Qi Shu in this film. However, compared to his performance in the glorious Floating City, Kwok was using less than 10% of his craft. It was like watching a master chef conducting a wienie roast. I did not believe the acting of much of the supporting cast. Hearing the dubs by anime voice actors made this much worse. Screenplay: 5/10 As an action comedy, this should have been quite good. However, the war between the subtitles and the dubbed text was a major detriment. The director's intentions were much harder to see when the voice said one thing while the subtitle said something contrary or even contradictory. When my sons were younger, I watched many hours of anime with them; this was usually the North American version of the anime. I recognize some of the anime voice actors used in this live action film. This added another layer of dissonance. SFX: 6/10 Mixed bag here. Some FX are well done and fit well with the fight choreography. Others look just plain stupid. There is also the recurrent matter of explosions that seem to have no cause at all. I found those the most annoying.

Simon Booth A group of circus performers are accidentally exposed to Japanese biochemicals from the World War II when looking for gold, and rapidly become super-strong but horribly disfigured mutants... all except for simpleton wannabe knife thrower Sunny (Aaron Kwok), who gets the strength without the hideousness due to... some reason or other.The ugly mutants go on a rampage in Hong Kong, using their super-strength to rob, murder and generally get up to mischief, whilst after a brief spell being horribly fat, young Sunny becomes a have-a-go hero and strikes up a relationship with beautiful reporter Angel (Shu Qi).It takes a special kind of person to watch Black Mask 2 and conclude "the world needs more films like that!", or to think "Terence Yin is an actor", or indeed to think "Benny Chan is a talented writer and director". I really can't imagine who would believe the latter, other than Benny himself, but he does keep getting quite large budgets to work with so unless his rich grandmother is financing them I guess he's somehow managed to convince others of it. To be fair, his films have mostly been successful - though largely due to Jackie Chan apparently being one of those who believe in Benny's ability enough to submit to his direction on multiple occasions.City Under Siege, or as it's called in the UK "Assassin: City Under Siege" (for absolutely no discernible reason - perhaps somebody's brain melted after watching the film, and they decided that randomly following words and concepts after each other was the new normal) is truly a bad film. It's terribly written, terribly directed, and for the most part terribly acted. Things start off full of cheese and poorly plotted, and just get worse from there. By the end there's barely a scene goes by without invoking responses of "Why are they doing that?", "What were they trying to achieve?", "Didn't they think this through for even a moment?" and "wow, that was some really poor acting right there". Poor Aaron Kwok, who has worked diligently to develop some degree of respectability as an actor despite all the early evidence that it was not a talent that came naturally to him, seems to have regressed 20 years overnight, or is just woefully miscast and mishandled. This is probably his worst ever performance. Shu Qi, another one who struggled to achieve credibility after debuting and being summarily dismissed as a ditzy airhead only fit for soft porn roles, also flounders in a role that to be fair gives her precious little to work with. Ngai Sing, who generally fares well enough when he's used properly - i.e. required to look somewhat stoic and serious and kick somebody's ass - is the worst victim of miscasting and a director who can't handle his actors. His overacting becomes truly painful to watch as more and more layers of latex and makeup are applied to his mutating body, until you just feel pity for the guy.The only cast members who come off at all well are Wu Jing and Zhang Jing-Chu, who perhaps benefit from being allowed to speak Mandarin or something. They are the only cast members who seem to fit their characters, and get a few (a very few) scenes where there seems to be some plausibility in their characters and emotions. Oh, and they get to kick plenty of ass.The one thing that Benny Chan does unquestionably know how to do is stage some big action set pieces, and this is where City Under Siege scores a few points. Having Ngai Sing & Wu Jing go toe to toe is clearly a good idea, as that is what they are good at. The super-strong mutant angle gives the choreographers Ma Yuk Sing and Nicky Li a good excuse to show off their wirework, but they also remember to have some more grounded action where the performers get to show off their skills. The staging of the fights is quite imaginative and dramatic, though I couldn't fully enjoy the final showdown in and around traffic because I couldn't stop thinking "Why the hell are people still driving along normally when all this is going on around them?", largely because by that point I'd decided that the most fun that could be extracted from the film was probably by going into snarky critic mode and picking it to pieces... a task which, unfortunately, offers absolutely no challenge.Oddly, bad as it is, watching City Under Siege has had the entirely unexpected effect of making me want to watch Black Mask 2 again... probably just to remind myself how bad it is, and to confirm that CUS is not quite _that_ bad. Perhaps it's just the timely reminder that you have to watch something truly dreadful every so often to remind yourself that overall, most films aren't really that bad.

david-sarkies This is probably another example of the Hong Kong culture East meets West. Having now watched Planet Terror it is also similar to the old grindhouse sci-fi horror movies where a virus turns the antagonists into super powerful zombies, however also thrown into the mix is a man who is resistant to the virus to an extent in that he gains super powers but does not get the side effects of the virus. As such, when this super mutant zombies go on a rampage through Hong Kong it is our hero that is the saviour.Another aspect of this movie is that it is about how the weak and obscure guy becomes a hero. When the mutants first attack Hong Kong he appears and defeats them and is instantly transformed into a hero. He is no longer a nobody as he gets the beautiful and famous girlfriend and also gets the recognition. However there is a side effect in that he also attracts the attention of the other mutants. They are powerful but the side effects mean that they cannot enjoy their new found power and wealth. Thus there is that struggle between the power and the ever increasing alienation which makes then more aggressive and in the end they simply want to destroy everything.This movie is hardly original, though it has the flavour of an eastern movie thrown in with an American plot. A group of circus performers are in Malaysia and hear of an abandoned gold mine, so they go and explore it. However it turns out to be an old Japanese lab and when they open the cannisters looking for the gold they unwittingly release the virus. They then return to Hong Kong and it is by that time that the virus has taken hold. Our hero, however, at first seems to have been effected but after a good nights sleep he has returned to normal with the exception of having super powers.This was an enjoyable movie, but once again nowhere near the classic Hong Kong cinema of the 1980's. Gone are the wires, though there is still a lot of dazzling martial arts and excitement. However a lot has changed since the heyday of the 80's, though they still have something that sets them apart from the movies of Hollywood.