Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In

Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City was once the most heavily populated small area on the planet. A squalid three-dimensional maze of tiny dwellings, narrow alleys and backroom businesses, it’s the perfect place to set a retro gangland kung-fu caper – which is exactly what director Soi Cheang has done with Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.

The film centres on Chan Lok-kwan (Raymond Lam), a street fighter whose desperation to get away and lead a new life leads to him being scammed by bloated Triad boss Mr Big (Sammo Hung). After stealing a bag of drugs from the gangland chief, he is chased into the Walled City – the turf of Cyclone (Louis Koo), the area’s sophisticated mob boss with a sideline as a barber.

After initially falling foul of Cyclone and his younger protégés – with painful results – Chan is then taken under his wing after the Walled City’s boss realises he is loyal and desperate.

What follows is a tale of interlocking Triad wars, friendship, family and revenge (like many a gangster flick before) – but with added, endless, reality-defying martial arts.

Chang’s recreation of the 1980s walled city is pretty enthralling – resembling Blade Runner’s futuristic Los Angeles in its depth and detail, while the story of comradely love and finding your family has its moments of real depth. There are also some stylistically brilliant moments, such as the bizarre fight to Walking in the Air, known to Brits as the theme to Raymond Briggs’s The Snowman.

However, Twilight of the Warriors does teeter on the edge of absurdity by overdoing the huge kung-fu setpieces. This may sound strange given it is what we are here to watch. But as with superhero movies, sometimes less is more. And this really is a superhero movie. Chan, his friends and his enemies’ abilities go well beyond the spectacular and into R-rated Spider-Man territory.

At several points, there are false endings that would hit emotionally if they were not followed by an ever-more-implausible fight scene, just as we only need Spider-Man to best his enemies brilliantly a few times a movie and need more of the stuff that makes us care about him doing so.

That said, when it does emotionally land, Twilight of the Warriors strikes a chord. If only the kung-fu had been used more discerningly alongside those moments to heighten their impact. It’s still fun, but could be so much more.

Mark Worgan

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is released nationwide on 24^th May 2024.

Read more reviews from our Cannes Film Festival 2024 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Cannes Film Festival website here.

Watch the trailer for Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In here: