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.

This Hong Kong action/Sci-Fi movie did have potential, and the synopsis did seem appealing, but the movie ultimately failed to live up to the expectations. And as for being a Benny Chan movie, then the movie just didn't really live up to his usual quality productions.First of all, I want to address the title of the movie, the English title is "Assassin: City Under Siege". What? This movie title is probably as far as they could get from the actual storyline and what the movie was about. So don't put too much into the movie title, as it is a hoax.The storyline was adequate, although it tended to be rather cheesy at times, leaning too much up against Marvel products, bordering on being a blatant rip-off at times. And that is what the movie suffered from the most. It was sort of a Hong Kong version of "X-Men", just on a toned down scale and a less funded scale.As for the people on the cast list, well I can't claim to be much fan of Aaron Kwok, and his performance in this movie didn't really win me over this time either. Shu Qi was the one who carried the movie for me, despite not having the lead role. And also Collin Chou, who usually does put on good performances and good action, really didn't impress in this movie either - as if his heart, wasn't fully in it.Effect-wise, then "Assassin: City Under Siege" (I just love this title) was actually quite good. The CGI worked out well, and the action sequences were nice as well. Despite this being martial arts with wires, then the fighting worked out well enough.For a Hong Kong action movie, then "Assassin: City Under Siege" was not in the usual league of action movies to come from here; there are far better action movies available even the older ones with Chow Yun Fat."Assassin: City Under Siege" is good enough entertainment for a lazy afternoon if you have nothing else to do, just don't expect to be blown away.

I really enjoyed most of the action flicks that director Benny Chan made in collaboration with martial arts icon Jackie Chan. For what it's worth, these unrelated Chans made a whole bunch of unpretentious and adrenalin-rushing popcorn movies that generally feature an ultra-thin plot but an overload of spectacular stunts and marvelously choreographed fighting sequences. The ultimate highlight of both their careers – according to yours truly at least – is the 2004 revision of the 80's franchise "Police Story". That film, simply entitled "New Police Story", is a downright awesome must-see in case you like your heroes invincible, your criminals pure evil and your action rough & explicit. I haven't followed Benny Chan's work since "New Police Story" but, browsing through his personal page on this lovely site, it seems like he reliably delivered a new movie practically each year. His 2010 accomplishment "City under Siege" played at this year's edition of the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Films and looked as if it had more than enough potential to become a crowd-pleaser. And yes, undoubtedly this could have been a real highlight this year if it weren't for the fact that the film is hopelessly overlong, tedious and repetitive. I'm very aware of the fact that Asian action movies are usually longer than necessary, but this one really pushed the edges of my tolerance level, what with its redundant sub plots, pointless melodrama and fighting sequences that more than outstayed their welcome! The rudimentary plot of "City under Siege" is nonetheless straightforward and full of great potential. A group of traveling circus artists stumble upon a cavern that used to serve as a secret military lab for unorthodox experiments during WWII. They inhale gas fumes and almost instantaneously notice their bodies mutating. They grow strengths and physical capacities that make them superhuman. Sunny, the geek and laughing stock of the bunch, uses his new gained powers for good causes, but the rest of them – who were pretty obnoxious and egocentric to begin with – can't resist the wide range of evil capacities and subject the whole city to a reign of terror. It's up to Sunny, together with a sexy news reporter and a romantically involved couple of police investigators, to stop them. Thus, simply put, "City under Siege" is somewhat the Asian take on "X-men" and a variety of other superhero movies, except of course that this isn't based on a Marvel comic book and that it – most unfortunately - features sugary sweet romance and melodrama. This would have been a really cool and ultimately amusing film, if only Chan & C° had cut approximately 30 minutes of all the redundant padding footage. I'm honestly not talking about vital plot information, but merely the romantic interludes, the detailed analysis of literally every single insignificant supportive character and also even 2-3 minutes of each physical duel (even though they're impressively staged). The production clearly didn't tighten the budget-belt, however. There's a massive amount of explosions, car crashes, buildings and interiors of apartments getting demolished and that sort of frolics. The flamboyant and often extremely OTT make-up effects weren't cheap, neither, I imagine. Worth a look if you like cheesy, light-headed fantasy flicks and an absolute must-see in case you are, for some incomprehensible reason, a fan of sappy romance intermixed with violent kung-fu.

There ought to be a rule that says "Hong Kong filmmakers should not marry sci-fi with action genre ever". With the release of "City Under Siege", Benny Chan's latest action thriller with a sci-fi twist, it proved yet again that it's almost blasphemy to do so.Heavenly King Aaron Kwok plays Sunny, a circus clown who dreams of being a famous knife thrower like his father. During a treasure hunting trip in Malaysia, Sunny and his fellow circus performers including Tai Chu (Colin Chou) accidentally triggered a bio-chemical weaponry that mutates them into super ugly beings. Tai Chu and the rest decide to make use of their newly-gained powers to embark on a crime spree while Sunny on the other hand is able to resist the rate of mutation.While on the whole better than Wong Jing's horrific sci-fi action drama, "Future X-Cops", Chan's "City Under Siege" still has a long way to go as compared to the Hollywood counterparts. Audience whom are fed constantly by the barrage of superheroes adaptations such as the X-men franchise will be familiar with what Benny Chan is attempting to accomplish. The younger demographics will be enthralled given the popularity of Power Rangers and the in-thing of today's children television, Ben-10. All these bring us to one thing – the standard of the makeup effects here are tacky, cheesy and laughable. Seriously all the above mentioned win hands down in this department and what we do get in "City Under Siege"? Perhaps Chan himself knew of this shortcomings that most of the gags including one in which we see Sunny seemingly wearing (transforming into) Andy Lau's rejected fat suit from "Love On A Diet" is play for laughs. Colin Chou probably suffered the most ridicule given his extreme makeover sessions had run into too much overtime.Despite this major setback, Benny Chan (Invisible Target, New Police Story) who has a track record churning out entertaining action flicks over the years is still an adept hand in conducting massive mayhem be it on the highway or high-rise buildings with his frequent collaborator, action choreographer Nicky Li. Obviously when it comes to action sequences, no one do it better other than Chan and Li with the nimble combination of wirefu and explosions. The various fight sequences populated with plenty of CG enhanced daggers turned out to be less memorable and engaging this time though it will still please the action fans seeing Colin Chou sparring with Wu Jing and so on.Chan who is also one of the three credited writers tries to squeeze one too many subplots and clichés into the story thus dragging the runtime over 20 minutes at least. There is the ludicrous triangle love with both Sunny and Tai Chou falling for the same girl, television anchor, Angel (Shu Qi), the group of under-exposed villains and there is the tender relationship between Suan Hou (Wu Jing from SPL), a cop in charge of the mutant-related crimes and his wife/subordinate Xiu Hua (Zhang Jing Chu from Protégé). Wu Jing is a capable action star given his extensive background in martial arts but the China-born actor has not much luck in the hall of fame despite the years spent in the industry. And here he is again in a forgettable supporting role that requires nothing else except his superior kicking moves.There's simply not much room given to Shu Qi and Zhang Jing Chu, two capable actresses if given the right role. At the end, both characters are simply disposable and Shu Qi is relegated to the typical 'damsel in distress' while Zhang's character don't really contribute much mileage to the story on the whole. Colin Chou (The Matrix Reloaded, Flash Point) is yet again in a one-dimensional, poorly-written baddie role that he so commonly portrayed in the nineties. Aaron Kwok who has worked with Chan on "Divergence" clearly is more effective as the naïve, innocent Sunny. The boyish actor has what it takes to be the charming leading man and also the athletic capability to perform the numerous stunts opposite his opponent, Chou.By no means, "City Under Siege" is a bad movie for the masses. Again, it's another one of Benny Chan's signature, popcorn action flicks though it somewhat tries to include too much cheesy humour and clichés. Minus the sci-fi factor (i.e. horrendous make-up effects), "City Under Siege" actually can be quite entertaining