Synopsis
In one-child-policy China, Mei grew up hidden and was trained in kung fu by her father. As an adult she arrives in Rome to find her older sister, who vanished in the Esquilino Chinatown. Her search crosses that of Marcello, a young cook whose father, a trattoria owner, has also disappeared.
Why watch it
Gabriele Mainetti, the Italian director behind They Call Me Jeeg, turns La città proibita into a kung fu film shot in Rome, in Italian and Mandarin. It was filmed between May and July 2023 under a working title that said it all: Kung-fu all'amatriciana. It opened in Italy in March 2025 and reached US digital platforms in March 2026 through Well Go USA.
A stuntwoman in the lead
Mei is played by Yaxi Liu, known until then for stunt work on big Chinese productions such as Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings and on Disney's 2020 Mulan. It is her first lead role. She does her own fighting and it shows: the shots run long enough to follow the combinations, without the choppy cutting that usually hides a double. The action was supervised by Liang Yang, who worked on Mission: Impossible - Fallout.
The film does not claim a specific style: the prologue shows a father teaching his daughters martial arts, and Mei then fights with whatever is at hand. Kung fu practitioners will spot the footwork and sweeps, and fights with everyday objects (kitchen knives, metal bars) that recall Hong Kong cinema. The restaurant kitchen sequence is the one critics mention most.
Genre film meets Roman chronicle
Mainetti blends the revenge story with a romance and a portrait of the Esquilino, the area around Piazza Vittorio that is home to much of Rome's Chinese community. Marco Giallini and Sabrina Ferilli, two well-known faces of Italian cinema, play the neighbourhood figures, opposite Luca Zingaretti, TV's Inspector Montalbano.
The film earned Mainetti the 2025 Nastro d'Argento for best director and won three David di Donatello awards in 2026 (cinematography, production design, visual effects). At its Fantasia festival screening in Montreal, critics praised the variety and impact of the fights.
Not to be confused with Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower (2006), released in France as La Cité interdite.
On TV
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Written by our monitoring agent from the sources cited.
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