The Movie: Twilight of The Warriors: Walled In / 九龙城寨之围城
The Director: Soi Cheang
The Cast: Louis Koo, Raymond Lam, Terrance Lau, Philip Ng, Tony Wu Tsz Tung, German Cheung, Richie Jen, Wong Tak Pun Kenny, Fish Liew, Chu Pak Hong, Cecilia Choi, Lau Wai Ming, Aaron Kwok, Sammo Hung
The Story: Follows troubled youth Chan Lok-kwun as he accidentally enters the Walled City, discovers the order amidst its chaos, and learns important life lessons along the way.
The Rating: 7 / 10
The Review:
I wasn't halfway through watching the trailer for this movie and I knew it was one I had to see. When the action is this high flying and intense, I'm going to be all in, even if the story isn't the greatest. This is the type of heightened reality fight choreography that actually enhances the story telling because it's easier to haver that suspension of belief and you know it's not taking place in our normal, non-heightened reality.
The movie opens with some high flying action although it's over pretty quickly and then things slow down quite a bit although not really in a bad way. There's a lot to dig into with the history of the walled city in Hong Kong which actually was a real thing and there are lots of characters to get to know along the way as well. In the grand scheme of things, there aren't really any surprises and the story played out pretty much as I expected it to. There's a couple twists thrown in but really, we're just here for the action.
I also really like how colorful the movie is and the set design is some of the best I've seen so far this year which makes it easy to get drawn into the day to day functions of the population that resides within the walled city. The mafia bosses are running the territories and they get plenty of screen time to do their thing but it's the people cooking and cleaning and selling and making things that are the life blood of these communities and it's pretty cool to see that fleshed out as well.
The focus of the story is on Chan Lok-kwan who is played by Raymond Lam who I remember from all the way back in 2011 when he starred alongside Jet Li in The Sorcerer And The White Snake, another hyper real, fantasy type story. Chan is the classic mysterious outcast who has a secret past and his story plays out a little bit like Neo as the "Chosen One" in the Matrix movies although without the blatantly obvious savior metaphor.
By the time the third act started to steamroll towards the conclusion of the movie, the fighting was in overdrive mode and any attempt to dwell on plot holes and silly conveniences are left far behind in favor of all the badass fight scenes we get to see. Yeah, there was some stuff that was just head scratching but who cares, I'm here to see people get kicked and punched and stabbed and shot at and chased and thrown into walls and that's exactly what the filmmakers threw on to the screen.
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