Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In: Action Movie About Lost Hong Kong

Posted in: Movies, Review | Tagged: Hong Kong action movie, john woo, johnnie to, Soi Cheang, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, WellGo USA

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is not only the best action movie of 2024 but also a defiant tribute to lost Hong Kong.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Hong Kong made the best action movies in the world, and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is here to remind us of that and feels a bit like a last hurrah. Set in the 1980s when Hong Kong was at its craziest, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In follows refugee Chan Lok-Kwan (Raymond Lam) as he enters Kowloon’s Walled City after he runs afoul of Triad boss Mr. Big (Sammo Hung) and his cartoonishly dastardly henchman King (Philip Ng) and falls in with Cyclone (Louis Koo), the gangster guardian of the Walled City. Lok-Kwan finds a family in Cyclone’s gang as he makes a living in hiding, but King and outside forces threaten to bring both him and everyone he cares about in the Walled City down.

The Walled City is a Metaphor for Hong Kong

The real walled city was finally demolished in 1993, and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is a comic book fantasy that idealises the place and the people. It was gangsters with a heart of gold and a community of ordinary people just trying to get by. There was drug dealing, murder, prostitution, and violence, but it also had a community that stuck together, which the movie celebrates as the spirit of Hong Kong. The film is the biggest box office hit in Hong Kong of 2024 because it’s a melancholy celebration of what makes Hong Kong tick: a bunch of flawed people who stick together against outsiders who want to destroy them. The vibe and attitude of the movie are uniquely Hong Kong in its combination of snarky, hardnosed cynicism next to almost mawkish sentimentality as well as a cartoonishly nasty bad guy who’s the final boss in the most ridiculously over-the-top climactic fight outside of a Tekken game.

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is A Collection of Hong Kong Action Movie Tropes

This movie contains everything that defines Hong Kong action movies: macho bromances and ambitious and elaborate action choreography that has influenced every Korean and Asian action movie ever since the 1990s and most of Hollywood by now. It’s no wonder John Woo and Johnnie To were initially slated to direct it, but that fell through. Soi Cheang‘s direction is more than up to the task as he uses the Walled City set to create an authentic, hyperreal comic book version of the Walled City with props from the 1980s to make the real main character of the movie.

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is the best action movie of 2024, but since it’s from Hong Kong, hardly anyone outside of Asia knows about it because Asian films don’t get much attention anymore unless it’s a hyped Korean movie or K-Drama, but those are still considered niche. It’s also the best Hong Kong movie for decades in its celebration of a lost Hong Kong, not just in nostalgia for action movies when Hong Kong made the best, most unpredictable, and outrageous action movies in the world, but also its lament for Hong Kong culture that’s slowly fading away under Mainland Chinese rule. Of course, Hong Kong will still make action movies, but those are more in keeping with Mainland Chinese pro-authority censorship demands. This movie feels like one last cry of defiance.

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is out on Blu-Ray and VOD.

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