A brilliant idea to set a ‘warring gangs’ action film in the iconic if long-demolished Kowloon Walled City, but this comic book adaptation feels numbingly empty with its stylistic excesses a tonal mismatch with the more sobering space of marginality and exploitation.
Review #2,902
Dir. Soi Cheang
2024 | Hong Kong | Action, Crime, Thriller | 126min | 2.39:1 | Cantonese & Mandarin
NC16 (passed clean) for violence throughout, language and some drug content
Cast: Raymond Lam, Louis Koo, Terrance Lau, Tony Wu, German Cheung Man-Kit, Philip Ng, Richie Jen, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
Plot: In 1980s Hong Kong, troubled youth Chan Lok-kwun, a mainland refugee, struggles to survive in the Kowloon Walled City by joining underground fights. Betrayed by crime boss Mr. Big while trying to buy a fake ID, he steals drugs from him and seeks refuge in the Walled City, where he encounters Cyclone, a compassionate yet authoritative crime lord.
Awards: Official Selection (Cannes)
Distributor: Media Asia
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Warring Gangs; Brotherhood; Kowloon Walled City
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Mainstream
Viewed: Golden Village Suntec (as part of Hong Kong Film Gala Presentation)
Spoilers: No
What a brilliant idea this was—to set an action film largely in one of Hong Kong’s most iconic locales, the long-demolished Kowloon Walled City.
Based on a comic book, with the intent of producing a trilogy of movies, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is the first instalment, directed by Soi Cheang.
Cheang has garnered a reputation for serious thrillers like Limbo (2021) and Mad Fate (2023), as well as much more commercial fare like the four (well, so far) ‘The Monkey King’ movies.
Walled In should excite more casual fans of action cinema, and indeed, there are some fantastic action sequences to boot, though they feature humans with superhuman ability and unbelievable tolerance for pain that, after some point, the film feels numbingly empty.
I wanted to leave the cinema but stayed for the spectacle, however absurd it was. It’s ironic isn’t it, staying for the very thing that I couldn’t feel for, but I just wanted to give the film a chance.
“This is our turf.”
I’m not quite sure why I felt this way, but perhaps it is Cheang’s stylistic excesses (indulgent slow-mo effects, hyper-melodramatic narrative beats, use of CGI, etc.) that don’t quite match the more sobering and marginalised space that is the Walled City, one complete with lawlessness, poverty and suffering. It is this dissonance that I couldn’t accept once the first stylised violent scuffle gets into gear.
Another underlying factor could be that I saw Walled In right after Johnny Mak’s Long Arm of the Law (1984), which features in its climax arguably the most brutal and breathtaking of cat-and-mouse gunfights between criminals on the run and the Hong Kong police, shot in the real Walled City itself.
So, there you go, but please do not be dissuaded from seeing Walled In as it could be terrifically entertaining for you, as most of the audience I was with would have attested.
A tale of survival and vengeance amid warring gangs trying to gain leverage and control over a decaying real estate, Cheang’s work, at the very least, got me diving deeper into learning more about the Walled City, its inhabitants and their countless stories.
Grade: C+
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 