Get ready to throw down in “The Forbidden City.” [Fantasia]

By Douglas Davidson on July 26, 2025 • ( 2 )

Since Cain slew Abel, it’s believed that humanity has continued to find ways to betray itself, regardless of the cost. As such, stories have found ways to exploit this element of the human condition as a means for narrative catalyst, often bringing with it pain best experienced on the big screen and, preferably, not in reality. For when we express and explore the worst parts of ourselves on the big screen, we get a sense of closure that we can never get in real life. Having its North American premiere in the Cheval Noir section of Fantasia International Film Festival 2025 is co-writer/director Gabriele Mainetti’s (Freaks Out) latest project, the martial arts dramedy thriller The Forbidden City (La città proibita). A rich story of love and betrayal, The Forbidden City also includes some of the best action you’re going to find in theaters thanks to top notch stunt leadership and a lead with the talent to make the extraordinary believable.

L-R: Marco Giallini as Annibale and Enrico Borello as Marcello in THE FORBIDDEN CITY. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival.

With her sister Yun (Haijin Ye) missing, Mei (Yaxi Liu) heads for Rome in order to get answers. At the same time, Marcello (Enrico Borello), a cook in his family’s restaurant, is frustrated that his father, Alfredo (Luca Zingaretti) has left his family for a younger woman. Thrust together by circumstance, the pair will need to work together as they face two feuding factions of the Roman criminal underworld.

Yaxi Liu as Mei in THE FORBIDDEN CITY. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival.

Written by Stefano Bises (Adagio; M – Son of the Century), Davide Serino (M – Son of the Century), and Mainetti (all of whom crafted the story the script is based on), The Forbidden City is a miraculous balancing act of action and drama utilizing real-world issues to construct a wholly fabricated thriller. While no commentary is spent exploring it, everything starts with the former one-child policy in China that was upheld from 1979 – 2015. The audience is introduced to a young Yun and Mei learning martial arts from their father before Mei is skuttled away before she’s noticed by someone. This choice not only feeds into the emotional center of the narrative regarding the bond between siblings, but it also provides a number of supportive measures for the characterization of adult Mei as she struggles with human interaction. At first, it can be passed off as mere heightened emotional state due to looking for her missing sister as well as being in a foreign (to her) land, but it goes deeper than that; all of which is unveiled slowly, purposefully throughout the runtime. Using this type of slow reveal, Mainetti ensures that every time the audience has the movie figured out, something arises, bringing forth new dimension to the tale and ever more increased stakes without ever losing the humanity within, empowering the script to juggle various tones (drama, comedy, thrills) without sacrificing narrative harmony.

Impressively, even as the bulk of the film takes place in Italy, a small neighborhood in Rome being the main location for everything (an area in which Marcello is well-versed), The Forbidden City remains an immigrant story, one in which someone leaves to find a better life and, almost universally, discovers that there are predators in your new place just like there were at home. No matter what occurs in the Marcello story, and it’s inextricably linked to Mei’s story, the script never allows the audience to forget that Rome is a town of immigrants and that its citizens don’t always welcome foreigners. This is, of course, somewhat antithetical to the days of the great Roman Empire as it was seen, then, as the center of the world, the place to which all roads led for ideas, enterprise, and growth. Admittedly, it was more talking point than reality as the dream of Rome could only exist in the hearts and minds of people so long as greed propagated, and it did, which is why Marcello and his “uncle,” Annibale (Marco Giallini), speak so lowly of the Chinese immigrants. Admittedly, Marcello does it mostly out of anger when he gets attacked, but a slur’s still a slur no matter how comfortable Marcello is using it in frustration versus how Annibale uses it to express his disdain for any immigrant regardless of what they pay him to reside in Rome. Smartly, the script ensures that no house is immune, that whether looking at what’s happening in the restaurant Forbidden City run by Wang (Chunyu Shanshan), or Annibale’s exploits, their crimes require the subjugation of people, refugee, immigrant, or citizen. It may not be the intention for Mainetti to be commenting on these things, yet, as integral aspects of the narrative, the filmmaker does so all the same with a resounding condemnation on cruelty, trafficking, and extorsion through beautifully constructed consequences.

May of the consequences are delivered through exquisite stunt sequences and action set pieces that do more than entertain, they move the story forward with purpose and intention. After the cold open, Mainetti throws the audience into the depths, using Mei as means of kicking things off in the terrifying world of trafficking. In a one-verses-many sequence, Mei battles adversaries in a variety of terrains with improvised weapons, finding new ways to escalate with each engagement before a most satisfying conclusion. Portraying Mei is Yaxi in her second feature and first time as lead. Her prior work includes stunts in Mulan (2020) and two of the Kingdom movies, and she dominants the screen in presence and skill in a way that reminds audiences of Donnie Yen (In the Line of Duty: Part Four; Dragon) and Jackie Chan (Project A; Police Story). Some of this is due to the stunt team coordination lead by Troy Milenov (William Tell; The Marvels; Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) and Emiliano Novelli (William Tell), each possessing a great deal of knowledge which comes through in the staging and camera placement so that the audience can feel the impact of each punch, kill, and slice; however, none of it works without Yaxi who makes Mei someone none should underestimate in a fight. In the same way that Chan has used rhythm and practiced improvisation as a means to entertain audiences through startling sequences, Yaxi evokes a similar feeling as Mei breaks a CD to use it as a dual blade, utilizes flower stems as tonfa, or anything else in her vicinity that can be molded into a weapon of destruction. In the same way Donnie Yen has a speed and power that’s never reduced in his decades of filmmaking, challenging filmmakers to figure out ways to capture his flurried punches on camera in a way the audience can see them and process their impacts, so does it often feel like Mainetti positions the camera, much like an experienced Hong Kong action director, just where it needs to be in order to ensure we see how fast and powerful Yaxi-as-Mei is. In terms of character progression, each entanglement tells the audience about her training, her cleverness, and her determination, all of which come to bear in one way or another later in the film. Just when you think a sequence has gone as high as it can in terms of expertise, the stunt team pulls out another gear, amplified and wonderfully accentuated by composer Fabio Amurri’s (German Angst) score.

L-R: Yaxi Liu as Mei and Enrico Borello as Marcello in THE FORBIDDEN CITY. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival.

Action in cinema can be great and can very well be the reason that audiences return to a film or follow an actor, but there needs to be more in order for the film to expand past its pieces, and that’s where the performances come in. Building off a script that makes it clear just how different Mei and Marcello are, not only do the characters respond to their respective situations differently (Mei with fists; Marcello with words), the performances from the leads and the supporting players support the differences. Yaxi offers a performance like a powder keg on the verge of explosion, treating Mei like a compressed coil perpetually under stress or strain. When that finally releases, Yaxi manages to bring Mei down without sacrificing the character’s integrity. Likewise, Marcello is a raw nerve of frustration, but Enrico keeps so much of this under the surface that we don’t realize he’s hit a boil until the moment he does. Perpetually exasperated by life’s indignities, Enrico manages to elevate what could be a mostly whiny and typical male protagonist into someone the audience can support as more than just the recipient of several shit sandwiches who refuses to say “no” to seconds, thirds, and fourths. Even Giallini and Shanshan bring a depth to their respective underworld leaders so that we possess some shred of empathy despite their wretchedness.

Sabrina Ferilli as Lorena in THE FORBIDDEN CITY. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival.

2025 has had a number of solid action films hit theaters and home video. Among them include 40 Acres, Freaky Tales, and Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League, but none of them touch the fury within The Forbidden City. The narrative, the stunt work, and the performances are strong on their own merits, but, together, they create something that has something to say about the state of the world while not being afraid to punch a motherfucker out. Delightfully, ahead of its North American premiere, Well Go USA has acquired the film for North American distribution, so even more people will get a chance to enjoy this genre-hybrid. Get ready to enter The Forbidden City.

Screening during Fantasia International Film Festival 2025.
Available on digital March 17th, 2026.

For more information, head to the official Fantasia International Film Festival The Forbidden City webpage.

Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.