Directed by Soi Cheang
Starring Raymond Lam, Louis Koo, Sammo Hung
There’s a Wikipedia page for the topic “epic film,” which gets into some of the back-and-forth in film scholarship about whether the term applies exclusively to historical-style movies or to those in other genres as well. If the latter, then 2001 is (as designed) a “sci-fi epic,” and The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy epic, though that’s somewhat obvious. What about the less obvious genres, like comedy? I can only think of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. And then there’s action, which might be even trickier. This is our punchy genre, often driven by a single hero rather than an ensemble, and inside a contained scenario instead of sprawled out across time and space. I’d actually make the argument for The Night Comes for Us, for its multiple perspectives, its backstory, and the scale of the fights. Consider, too, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, running at a touch over two hours and setting its action inside the real-world megastructure Kowloon Walled City.
It’s a fruitful comparison for another reason, as Walled In is already a curious marker in film history. From the 1960s onward, Hong Kong was the undisputed king of action, and then the 2000s happened. John Woo and Jackie Chan went west, and during that time, Thailand and Indonesia seemed to compete for the mantle, resulting in international breakouts like Ong-Bak and The Raid: Redemption. What this newest school introduced was bloody, bloody violence, with bone-crunching choreography and prop work out of the horror playbook. We’re introduced to the hero of Walled In, Chan Lok-kwan, as an underground fighter in a makeshift arena where glass bottles become glass shards, and he’s grinding his fist into it and getting dragged over it, leaving long streaks of blood. If you want your film industry to stay current, this helps. Also, Kenji Kawai doing the music, making this movie sound like Ip Man 5.
If Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, with its more than 90 seconds of production logos at the start, feels like the combined effort of a national industry to recapture the crown, it might be accidental. Apparently, filmmakers have been trying to adapt the source material for decades, making this less a throwback and more an uncovered film once lost to time. Screen legends like Louis Koo and Sammo Hung play legendary figures within the world of the story, lending the film a winking visage as well as its grandiosity, as discussed above. Long ago, their characters battled for control of the Walled City, a Chinese military fortress abandoned by both the Chinese and the British governments. No codes for construction or business, attracting organized crime and people with nowhere to go.
Lok is an illegal immigrant, and ends up in the Walled City via foot chase, after stealing drugs from a duplicitous kingpin (Hung). He runs headfirst into the territory of Cyclone (Koo), guardian of Kowloon answering only to Triad boss Dik Chau (Richie Jen). Lok is summarily pummeled by Cyclone and his second-in-command Shin, though not everyone around town is hostile, like the good doctor AV, who wears medical bandages like a luchador mask – because you got to have a badass in a mask. Slowly but surely, Lok integrates himself into this new world, the kind where the rules are often punctuated by “because it’s the Walled City.” That’s life in the Walled City, man. Unfortunately, the reveal of his true identity reignites the original turf war, between the old masters whose differences are these days edged by an almost friendly familiarity. The resulting fight scenes, with all their reversals and betrayals, are surprisingly tragic.
And absurd! The bloody fisticuffs introducing the film give way to a gradual ascent toward supernatural largess. Cyclone greets Lok with a punch that sends him spinning across the room, which may be excused by something like “film adrenaline,” the heightened quality of action cinema. By the end, however, a character shouts, “He knows spirit power. Don’t let him use it!” Now, that’s old-school kung fu. It might be a bait-and-switch for us gorehounds, but in practice, means that literally nothing is off the table. Fighters will float with the wind and tank sledgehammer blows and parry a flying motorcycle – and, of course, make generous use of the coolest setting for an action movie ever. The Walled City is intricate and infinite, expanding horizontally and vertically, perfect for climbing and running and, in one hardcore instance, scraping against two tight walls to slow a hurdling descent toward the earth.
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is an epic story nevertheless bursting at the seams of a feature film. Speaking of old-school kung fu, so much of the movie is about the affairs between men: the unspoken debts, the nobility of fatherhood, loyalty to blood brothers. If there’s one weakness here (aside from maybe a too-busy visual style – some things do change, and CGI is required to recreate Kowloon), it’s the development of Lok and his martial brotherhood. They’re all just enough to work, but that’s the standard for “good action,” and this a great action film. Otherwise, the melodrama is at a perfect pitch, massaged by the non-fight scenes which let the story breathe. It’s considered, not slow-paced, and though there are future installments on the books, this one feels complete. Totally satisfying, like a bowl of pork and rice (or a kick to the head).
For historical background on Kowloon Walled City, I recommend this video as a companion piece:
With Eyes East 