Rip and Tear | The Forbidden City (2025) Review

Directed by Gabriele Mainetti
Starring Enrico Borello, Yaxi Liu

“Say where he is, or I smash you, jerk.”

Whoa! You know, it wouldn’t take much for an Italian kung fu movie to be the best Italian kung fu movie, so why set the bar so high? I don’t think anybody else is coming. First of all, I’d be happy to address any reservations one might have, as I did, based on the title. Despite its somewhat foggy thematic resonance, The Forbidden City is “Chinese restaurant name” generic and may resurface unpleasant memories of The Forbidden Kingdom, the Jet Li versus Jackie Chan anticlimax which happened to be the Hollywood debut of Liu Yifei, who’d go on to play Disney’s Mulan in 2020, doubled by stuntwoman Yaxi Liu, the star of The Forbidden City. Capisce? As we find, “Forbidden City” is the name of a Chinese restaurant in the movie, but it could also refer to its primary setting of Rome, upon which Liu’s wayward character Xiao Mei eats, prays, and lays a heavy beating, and that’s only barely a joke. Fair warning (or invitation): the spice level here is “Korean.” We’re not talking CG blood and the weightlessness of mild American fare nor the horror-hewn sadism of Indonesia. It’s roughly comparable, I’d say, to The Man from Nowhere. Guys, do not fight in a Chinese kitchen, where there’s grills and frying oil and – oh, God – cheese graters. There’s a bone break so severe I yowled. Mei is hardcore, animated by rage and, to borrow a useful term, too angry to die.

At 138 minutes, you’d think The Forbidden City was one of those recent Oscar movies; said runtime is partway between those of Sinners and One Battle After Another. And like those two films, to be fair, it moves. Throughout, I struggled to identify potential bloat: “Why and where is this movie so long?” It’s not that scenes drag or there are needless subplots, but that it’s essentially two-in-one: a martial arts adventure with a gangster movie structure and a domestic farce, and they marry surprisingly well, even enhancing each other. It’s not a comedy, but there is comedy, and it colors the world and sketches out characters. For example, the villain is an ostensible crime boss, Mr. Wang, but the most we learn about him is that his son is an up-and-coming rapper, and that he’s proud of him. So, when Wang plays his son’s CD and starts grooving in front of his henchmen, it’s strange but oddly endearing? He knows all the lyrics. There’s also a signora who’s dramatic and passionate, and a two-bit “uncle” sort of guy who’s softer than suggested by his chatterbox exterior (and constant racism).

More than just “moves,” though, The Forbidden City skips. There appear to be (or disappear to be) scenes that are missing. Funnily enough, we start in a place like so many movies of this vintage, glimpsing our heroine first as a precocious kid. We’re told that China in 1995 had its one-child policy, making Mei a forbidden (uhp) younger sister to Yun. A single cut jumps us forward twenty years, where an adult Mei has already infiltrated the organization as a prospective sex worker and is demanding the whereabouts of her sister, to the point of an introductory fight scene where she may or may not answer a knife by snapping a CD in half. But – whoa, oh, oh! What organization? What happened to her sister? Well, that’s the thing. We already know, don’t we? This isn’t the winking genre literacy of John Wick and its kin, it’s just what happens when there’s an entire other movie going on simultaneously, and the eventual collision of the two is beautiful. After demonstrating the film’s impressive sense of weight and consequence (bodies drop in heavy thuds, often accompanied by pitiful screams) as well as a fast, flexible camera, Mei exits the familiar Chinese triad dungeon onto the sunny streets of Rome. Moments before the title card, she meet-cutes the male lead Marcello, a good-natured cook, by pressing a knee to his face and doing her second favorite thing: demanding somebody tell her where somebody is.

For Marcello, this moment is a metaphor for life itself. He’s stuck, cooking at the family restaurant and dealing with a dramatic mother who suspects her husband of skipping out on her. Her solution is to tear through the bedroom and collect the man’s countless ties, then drop them off at the market, where all the friendly faces know Marcello. And why not? If he’s passive, he’s also relaxed. When queried about the bruise on his face, he says flatly and honestly, “I was beaten up by a Chinese girl,” eliciting laughter from men destined for worse. At the heart of The Forbidden City is the juxtaposition of an indomitably strong woman (knife in my shoulder blade? No problem!) and this guy who’s just, like, a guy, a character combination so rare that its examples hardly constitute a “body of work” for any interested academics. Maybe a “torso of work.” Mei ropes Marcello into her pursuit of Yun because he has a personal stake, too, though he doesn’t initially realize. Their relationship has a light touch, with the journey itself splitting them up as often as slamming them together. And yet, they find themselves in classic, literally romantic Europe, against gorgeous production design and the city’s needs-no-introduction beauty. No finale at the Colosseum (RIP Chuck?), but each combat arena is well chosen, well designed, and put to use.

The action has the props, speed, and wit of Jackie Chan, and as mentioned, excruciating violence. At the center, there’s Mei, whirling and dangerous even without such weapons as knives, frying pans, and a fish. Aside from the similarly statured but mega-talented JeeJa Yanin, Yaxi Liu’s performance recalls the kung fu stardom pre-Bruce Lee; nowhere near “cool and collected,” with her percussive grunts best described as “avian” and communicating desperation, despite her upper hand. No, Mei derives her fearsome presence from the fighting itself. Although she workshops a pretty cold line toward the end, she’s not the type to strike fear with words. Instead, she’ll smash a hyperextended arm repeatedly until it breaks, and that is terrifying. Throat punches, kicks to the balls – nothing is off limits, and men have a lot of weak points, looks like. The sound design is impeccable, too, with every impact crisp and wince-inducing. It’s a marvelous cinematic orchestration, and I felt it in my bones.

As a fun bonus, Mei also exhibits an action hero primacy I might call Dieselian. At one point, she’s finally overpowered by the dozens of guys she’s been heretofore beating up, and Wang is like, “Take her to the basement,” to which I roll my eyes while knowing, hey, this is the price. Even male action heroes have to do this part, and fair enough, it’s a different kind of strength test: endurance. But nope, Mei just gets up and starts fighting again, hurling herself out of a window and into the night. It’s basically like how Vin Diesel is so badass that he disrupts the normal flow of the movie around him, warping reality. Of course, I’m not too bothered by a character’s invincibility in a case like this – nor am I particularly bothered by Vin Diesel, truth be told – because there are other opportunities for tension. And is that what I’m looking for anyway? I’m excited whenever Mei is on screen, running down the busy streets or scaling a wall. I’m happy as a clam! And I’m nearly as happy when it’s Marcello, too, because his very presence in the narrative makes her even more special.

Amazingly, it doesn’t look like director Gabriele Mainetti is some dyed-in-the-wool action stalwart, though the decision to spotlight a stuntperson takes a page from the Hollywood renaissance. His past work is made up of what appear to be genre-bending dramas driven by an intellectual curiosity, which does reframe the aspects of The Forbidden City outside the action, like the cultural tensions and how old men adjust to a changing world. Mostly, though, I assume Mainetti’s career so far has helped shape this latest film into the total package, instead of a string of action scenes held together by an insincere plot (oh, I’ll probably end up watching the new Bob Odenkirk). It’s also the compelling announcement of Yaxi Liu as an action star. If this is the start of her journey as a lead actress, maybe next time she won’t have to venture as far as Italy. Then again, maybe she ended up exactly where she needed to be.