By Eric Ortiz (@EricOrtizG)
One of the Midnight Screenings at the ongoing 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival was Hong Kong’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024), directed by Soi Cheang. It’s an action drama set in the 1980s, primarily within Kowloon Walled City, the “anarchic enclave” that actually existed until 1993.
The protagonist (Raymond Lam) is a young needy refugee who – after an ill-fated encounter with Triad members led by Big (legendary Sammo Hung) – ends up in the Walled City, territory controlled by Cyclone (Louis Koo), a barber and old-timer martial arts master.
The Walled City is a place of contrasts, as it’s full of hard-working and hospitable people, but on the other hand violence can erupt at any moment: a man, for example, brutally beats a woman to death. In a subsequent sequence that seems to set the course of the film, the protagonist decides to act as a vigilante. It turns out that other of the youngsters with whom he has interacted in the Walled City – including Cyclone’s protege (Chun-Him Lau) – show up wearing masks to also give the violent guy what he deserves.
However, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In ends up developing another plot, directly connected to the time when the barber Cyclone took control of the Walled City. The enclave’s biggest landlord and sworn brother of the barber (Richie Jen) keeps desiring to find and eliminate the son of a henchman who killed his family decades ago.
Just when our protagonist has decided to stay in the Walled City, he gets caught up in this vendetta that completely alters his life and the order of the enclave, and that certainly provokes a good dose of action. I talked about all of these topics with director Soi Cheang at the Cannes Film Festival.
Eric Ortiz (EO): Your cinematic version of the Kowloon Walled City shows both the sense of community and the violence.
Soi Cheang (SC): I think the cinematic depiction is not far from reality, the Kowloon Walled City was actually like that. Aside from the crime, the violence, and the drugs, there was also a sense of community, a sense of unity between people.
My intention was to depict how the main character falls within this community, finds his place, and how he’s so accepted by the people there. There’s a sense of warmth between the whole community.
EO: The protagonist being a refugee also comes from real life. In the movie it’s mentioned that many refugees were arriving in Hong Kong at that time.
SC: I think of myself as an outsider as well because I was originally from Macau. I arrived in Hong Kong when I was 11 years old, so I took that into the spirit of the protagonist. And then tried to show how an outsider can be welcomed into this community. It takes a lot of effort, patience and hard work for him to find his place within the Walled City.
EO: You develop a big story that deals with such themes as power, the past, and revenge.
SC: I believe that these themes are there so that the main character can grow throughout the movie. I didn’t especially want to develop these themes, but it’s kind of necessary for the protagonist to go through these stages and feelings in order to have character development, something everyone wants to see on screen.
These are not necessarily my favorite themes, like power, revenge, struggle, that kind of thing, but it’s necessary for the depiction of generational trauma. The protagonist has to deal with revenge, sought out by people from his father’s generation.
EO: Sammo Hung takes part in an action sequence that is bloodier than the previous ones. How was working with him?
SC: I really respect Sammo Hung, because I found him really easy to work with on set. He would work alongside the action choreographer of the film, he’s very willing to listen to instructions even though he’s a legend within the martial arts world. I really respect him for that.
EO: The larger-than-life climatic action set piece includes weapons and even a motorbike. How was the process behind it?
SC: It was difficult because the set was not that big, whereas there was a lot of action to pack into that area. We just had to do it step by step, a little bit of action on one side and then keep going to the next and the next. It’s a process, it couldn’t be done all at once. It was a big thing.
EO: The movie features a younger generation of warriors (Philip Ng also appears as a powerful and ambitious Triad member). What do you think of the current state in Hong Kong regarding the action and martial arts genres?
SC: Obviously I hope for the best of these rising action stars. Becoming a real action actor is quite a challenging process, it’s very tiring and takes a lot of effort, but if one persists and the market accepts this kind of genre again, I’m sure it could be a great success.
There was an oversaturation of martial arts films coming from Hong Kong, but now, because of this movie, people are starting to like it and accept it again, so I’m hoping for the best.