Soi Cheang’s punchy, peppy thriller will be lapped up like manna from heaven by fans of Hong Kong action cinema. Set in the genre’s salad days, the 1980s, in Hong Kong’s gang-ridden enclave of Kowloon Walled City, it takes delicious advantage of that decade’s clothes, haircuts and pimpy shades.
Having topped the Hong Kong box office over its Labour Day holiday release and opening strongly in China, and with deals already locked in for the UK & Ireland, Germany and the US, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In should appeal to anyone who is up for a rollicking, fast-paced, stylish actioner that is always atmospheric while never taking itself too seriously. Soi has carried the torch recently for the crime-meets-action genre in films ranging from Accident (2009), Motorway (2012), the ultra-dark Limbo (2021) and the flimsily whimsical Mad Fate (2023).
That review says:
All of these action sequences – and they are legion – are crisply choreographed, high-octane yet always legible.
But The Guardian complains that, while:
the athleticism and fight choreography is impressive, even if the action is edited so frenetically that it’s almost impossible to follow.
As it’s already on the Odeon app (although no screenings are listed yet) I’ll be seeing this and will have to decide for myself - the way they filmed the action in Monkey Man really let it down.
Ohgods. You had to mention Monkey Man. 😱🥹 What s disappointment that thing was.
Sorry, but I thought I’d share my suffering from the inadvertent flashback to Monkey Man whilst reading the reviews.
It was disappointing as there were a lot of good ideas in there that would set it apart from the other one-man-army films but they dropped the ball.
Ferreal. Hanuman is one of my personal favorite fables (incl the early plagiarism by Sun Wukong’s existence, yes), and they did my fuzzy boy dirty AF. 😱
