City Under Siege Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

City Under Siege Blu-ray Movie Review

Siege mentality.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 23, 2011

What is it with superheroes and caves, anyway? Superman had his Fortress of Solitude, Batman had his Batcave, Hellboy was found in a cave when he was just a little demonic toddler, and on and on. There must be something Freudian or Jungian some other “ian” that accounts for this prevalence of dark, shadowy enclosed womb like spaces harboring these strange souls, some of whom at least are mutants. A cave plays a central role once again in superhero territory in the patently bizarre Hong Kong science fiction actioner City Under Siege, a 2010 outing directed by the venerable Benny Chan, who is probably better known for a series of crime and caper films that include everything from the Jackie Chan (no relation) Rob-B-Hood to Invisible Target to New Police Story. City Under Siege retains several elements of Chan’s typical oeuvre, including cartoonish violence and slapstick laden comedy, but the film is invested with a new (for Chan, anyway) science fiction edge that sees the director exploring some new vistas that his longtime fans may find unexpected. City Under Siege has the perhaps peculiar distinction of having a clown—as in a “real life” clown who works for a circus—be its hero du jour, a nerdish kid named Sunny (Aaron Kwok) whose forced visit to a hidden cave unleashes a gas which transforms him into one of the oddest superheroes ever, while simultaneously transforming the gaggle of thugs who dragged him to the cave into a group of increasingly disfigured supervillains. That sets up a showdown which may remind some viewers of the somewhat similar confrontation between Superman and General Zod, Ursa and Non in Superman II. Mix in a Lois Lane sort of reporter character who is simultaneously smitten with Sunny while also using him to advance her stalled career, and the Superman connection seems at least a bit more obvious. But City Under Siege is a good deal loonier than any Superman outing, and it’s that weird combination of humor with more traditional science fiction and superhero elements that gives the film its distinctive style.

As Cowboys and Aliens proved rather convincingly this year, trying to make a Frankenstein-monster kind of hybrid out of various elements from several genres isn’t always an easy task, and though the filmmakers may scream, a la Colin Clive in Frankenstein, “It’s alive! It’s alive!,” more objective filmgoers may insist that at best it’s simply not quite dead yet. City Under Siege shows the seams (analogous to those ugly stitches on the Frankenstein monster) of Chan’s attempt to blend a number of disparate elements, and while that’s disconcerting at times, it also means that a lot of audience members are going to find something to enjoy about the film, albeit in dribs and drabs.

City Under Siege actually recalls yet another superhero franchise—in this case, X-Men—with a Maylaysia set prologue which takes place in the closing days of World War II and sees a nefarious Japanese soldier conducting illicit experiments on what appears to be an American, leading to his transformation into a Hulk-like beast of destruction. This is oddly redolent of the Kevin Bacon character in X-Men First Class, even if the outcome is slightly different. In this case, the cave where these experiements are being undertaken is bombed into oblivion before we segue into the present. Of course, the cave turns out to be the same place that Sunny and some resident goons end up in, and their attempt to discover treasure only leads to them unleashing some long hidden supersecret gas which transforms all of them in lesser or greater degrees. Sunny has a genetic predisposition which keeps him from going completely berserk, and his innate goodness also keeps him from going over to the dark side.

Once the film gets into its main central section, when Sunny’s incipient superherodom leads to him becoming a media star, the film achieves some rather unexpected heights of lunacy. Sunny, under the watchful eyes of his new “agent,” the Lois Lane like character Angel (Shu Qi), finds himself hawking a number of highly questionable products like a diarrhea cure. This completely odd tangent to the main plot highlights what City Under Siege does best, namely contorting the typical superhero clichés into something completely unexpected. Some of the fight scenes also play on the more typical Hong Kong martial arts formulas by having Sunny and his nemeses fly, float and acrobatically careen through a number of spectacularly staged set pieces.

City Under Siege is just weird enough to overcome some of its inherent weaknesses, at least some of the time. When a film shows a hero swelling up to Sta-puft Man proportions simply by dint of falling in water, and then, later, returning to normal size as torrents of water emanate from his body, there’s only so far attempts at resisting such craziness can go. If the dramatic elements of City Under Siege are by far its least effective moments, the rest of the film’s bristling action and goofy humor tip the scales enough times to make the film passably entertaining in its own extremely odd way. Though some of the special effects leave a little bit to be desired (some of the CGI is especially haphazard), the winning ways of the principal cast anchor the film with a surprising amount of heart that helps the film in dribs and drabs, but which never overcomes the central issue that City Under Siege's major claim to fame is simply how peculiar it all is.

City Under Siege Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

City Under Siege is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. Though the film was evidently shot in Super 35, what appears to be fairly extensive tweaking at the DI stage gives this film the flat, shiny look of high definition video a lot of the time. Many scenes have been artificially filtered, and in a couple of cases blacks are pushed to levels where they become posterized and purplish (look for this tendency in the big "three ring circus" showdown between Sunny and Brother Cho). Otherwise, though, this presentation offers excellent sharpness and clarity, with very good fine detail and solid and consistent black levels. Contrast has been intentionally played with and so may or may not be everyone's cup of tea depending on their personal tastes. While a lot of the CGI elements look quite good, some (especially an explosion and some escaping gas early in the film) look fairly cut rate.

City Under Siege Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

From virtually the first moment of the film, City Under Siege's boisterous lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mixes (in the original Cantonese and an English dub) get off to blistering starts, with some awesome LFE, extremely well placed discrete channel effects and an involving sense of immersion. Though I sampled it, I personally couldn't stomach the English dub for very long and stuck with the original Cantonese track for the bulk of the film, and it offers a precise and clear reproduction of the soundtrack, with very well prioritized dialogue and effects. The film's major action set pieces really kick this mix into high gear, with some really fantastic panning effects, especially since Chan repeatedly uses the trope of various weapons being flung at the screen (evidently a 3D version of the film was released overseas), with attendant effects clearly panning from front to rear. A number of inventive crashes, thwacks and blade sounds also populate the surrounds, and the sonic experience here is fairly over the top virtually all of the way through the film. To the film's credit, when it does briefly slow down for quieter dialogue scenes, dynamic range is quite expressive in these more laid back elements as well.

City Under Siege Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making of City Under Seige (SD; 22:10) is a kind of fun featurette showing lots of the action scenes being staged, as well as interviews with the principal cast (who all state what their preferred superpower would be), as well as director Benny Chan, who talks about making the transition from crime films to science fiction.
• Original Trailer (SD; 2:26)

City Under Siege Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I probably was able to go with the outright absurdities of City Under Siege a little more easily than my colleague Svet Atanasov, who reviewed the Hong Kong release of the film here. That said, any Benny Chan fan coming to this film expecting "more of the same" is going to be in for a major readjustment, for better or worse and depending of course on their own personal tolerance for a film that tries to knit together a number of different genres and styles. The film's goofy humor is its best selling point, and some of the set pieces are undeniably amazing. Is that enough for a film? That's for each individual to answer for themselves depending on their own tastes, but unless you're really in the mood for something whose weirdness is one of its major assets, you might want to consider renting this before committing to a purchase.