Director: Gabriele Mainetti
Year: 2026
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: La città proibita
Genre: Action
Plot:
Living in a vibrant Roman district, a chef at a local restaurant encounters a Chinese assassin demanding to know where a co-worker is, alerting a local Mafia boss to the incoming invasion of Chinese operatives in the city. As they try to foster a way of existing together, the relationship between the two of them grows as they spend more time together, looking into allegations of her missing father, centered around a mix-up at a restaurant in the city. When the whole affair brings a mild-mannered chef into the mix as a potential target, the misunderstanding brings them closer together as she sets her sights on the Mafia heads that are behind it all.
Review:
Overall, this was a rather fun and likable enough genre effort. A lot of the positives here are based around the strikingly deep and emotional storyline that not only provides a great baseline for the ensuing chaos to come. The mixture of cultures here involves a series of interconnected storylines between Chinese and Italian forces coming together, where we get to know the Chinese sense of family in their strict discipline and routine in their training, as we see her and her sister taking their training as seriously as they do. Compared to the more lackadaisical and passionate form of family that we see with him at the restaurant in the Italian side of things, which creates a fun dynamic to start the film, once the two worlds meet up following the misunderstanding at the restaurant that brings everything together. That lets their burgeoning romance feel all the more earned and realistic with the different influx of cultures and traditions that are featured throughout here.
Once it starts to deal with martial arts and action, this one becomes even more enjoyable. The series of interactions here offering the chance to showcase the lightning-fast martial arts skills of the main assassin brings about a series of striking setpieces, from encounters in the restaurant trying to deal with the thugs protecting the head Mafia boss staying there for a meal, or the battle in a factory that adds some impressively atmospheric touches of the constant smoke and fog that leads to some impressive choreography to deal with the situation. This type of frenetic action is immensely impressive, as it generates some strong action and close-quarter brutality with the different characters to provide some fun moments here. With the emotionally-charged romantic setup and family drama dynamics in play from the main story, making them quite sympathetic, which enables everything to feel quite likable and fun.
That said, there are some slight factors here that hold it back. The main issue with this one is the kind of multi-tiered approach to the story, where it has quite a lot going on for it than it really needs. The idea of the film exploring not just the lives of the Chinese mobsters, where she’s looking for her missing sister, within the confines of the other group of Italian Mafia men holding out around the specific restaurant, which is where the guy works, that she falls for, has quite a lot going on that it can feel exceptionally crowded. That’s mostly apparent in the first hour, where everything has to get set up and started so that it can fully explore everything, and it manages to create a lot of characters to follow in a short span of time, even with the rather slow-going pace that lasts well over the two-hour mark. That also leaves this with a generally overblown finale where it features a strong cathartic release to end it on, but then it bypasses that for another emotional ending that it doesn’t need, causing this to have a few issues.
Overview: ****/5
A wholly enjoyable and effective genre effort, there’s a lot to like here that manages to keep this going along nicely against a few slight issues that do keep it down. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare or who are curious about it will have the most to like here, while most others out there might want to heed caution.
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