Film: Twilight of the Warriors: Walled City

It’s often bittersweet seeing a film based on amazing Hong Kong. However, as the Twilight of the Warriors is based in the 80s, before I knew about the place, the story felt new.

Kowloon, the place I know well had an area where displaced people gravitated towards its safety. Layers of dwellings and businesses built without any planning permission where the community lived in harmony, protected by a gang leader, Cyclone, also the city barber, and his merry band of martial arts fighters.

Outside this enclave, a rival gang of drug dealers - gangs are always drug dealers - operated and the two have a mutual understanding to keep away from the other’s territory. That changes when one day a stranger wanders in looking for safety, Chan, an orphaned immigrant, is looking to buy an ID card. Having been sold a poor copy by a gang boss, retaliates by stealing a bag of the white stuff.

Whereas the film is all about martial arts, at its heart are the people in the walled city who through a series of signals and signs look out for each other. Chan witnesses this and works hard to become one of them and soon realises he has found both a family and a home

A twist in the plot changes the direction of the story. Even with the cliqued chain-smoking gang lords, I am enthralled till the end.

8/10