This movie was promoted in the social media of one of the cinema chains in Indonesia quite frequently and I also saw its trailer once before. Since it looked very interesting, I was looking forward to see it as soon as I could. Luckily during last weekend, there were more studios playing the movie compared to its first day release. So my wife and I had slightly better option to see this as we had another movie marathon day. All right, why don't I just get right to it.

Brief Story Line

Story was set in the 1980s Hong Kong where a lot of gangs were fighting over power in Kowloon Walled City, a very densely populated place inside the city, until Cyclone (Louis Koo - Warriors of Future, Chasing the Dragon II: The Wild Wild Bunch etc) and his boss Dik Chau (Richie Ren - The Sniper, State of Divinity TV series etc) were able to unify and put order into the place. Cyclone was now assisted by his right hand man Shin (Terrance Lau - Beyond the Dream, Leap Year TV series etc) and AV (German Cheung - Rob & Roll etc) who was sort of a doctor. Both of them were very close with Twelfth Master (Tony Wu - Weeds on Fire etc) from a different gang but was very respectful towards Cyclone.

When a refugee named Chan Lok-kwan (Raymond Lam - The Sorcerer and the White Snake, P Storm etc) reached Hong Kong, he somehow ended up in the Walled City after getting into altercation with powerful crime boss named Mr. Big (Sammo Hung - Ip Man, SPL: Sha Po Lang etc) and his vicious second-in-command King (Philip Ng - Birth of the Dragon etc). They have been eyeing to take over Kowloon and always tried to find ways to do so. And with the Government trying to take down the Walled City, the peace that have been enjoyed by the people would soon be disrupted.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

It has been a long time since I saw this kind of movie in the cinema. It was a full action martial arts Hong Kong film that reminded me of the good old days when there were so many of them playing in Indonesian theaters in the late 80s and 90s. The kind where we could see a lot of hand to hand fights with realistic looking punches, kicks, slams and the use of any weapons almost through the entire movie. Obviously my wife and I truly enjoyed every moment of them, so much so that we were left quite breathless in every action scenes, especially the grand finale.

The great thing about the film to me was it did not solely reliant on the action as it actually has a nice enough story. It might not have the most original plot, but it did have some interesting twist. And the friendship between Chan and his new buddies was a nice touch adding the dramatic feel. It also showed the poor social economic condition of the people inside the Walled City (which was a real fact at that time) and wonderfully created settings of the city itself (I read that they made not only one but two replica sets). The 1980s props looked real too, giving strong sense of the period and how the people lived inside the poor condition of Kowloon. Credits have to be given to the production, special effects and fight choreography team for doing a great job here,

The pretty large ensemble cast were wonderful to my opinion. The movie perfectly combined the more established actors like Sammo Hung, Louis Koo and Richie Ren with the younger stars like Terrance Lau, Tony Wu and the rest and of course Raymond Lam who was capable as the lead star. Oh btw, we were surprised to see the big name in Hong Kong entertainment Aaron Kwok (The Monkey King 3, Project Gutenberg etc) in the opening credit. Apparently he played a rather important character that had major impact on the story. I noticed also that the film was based on the novel "City of Darkness" by Yuyi and Chinese comics of the same title by Andy Seto. The director was Soi Cheang who had directed some critically acclaimed movies such as Motorway, Paradox, Limbo and many others. I admired his work here as he was able to make this a very entertaining feat.

The sound effects were very good as well. In a studio with standard Dolby system, it was still great and enhanced our experience. Only thing that truly bothered me and my wife were the person beside us who frequently took her handphone out and very disturbing. Anyway the movie has a duration of 126 minutes without any mid/post end credit scene. The closing credits showed some scenes of people inside the Walled City in their everyday lives which was nice to see. Although it seemed very long, but both of us really enjoyed our time seeing the movie.

Overall this was a highly entertaining martial arts Hong Kong movie which would satisfy fans of the genre. The action sequence were greatly executed and though there might be a bit over the top scene in the finale fight, but in general it was truly enjoyable. Critics seemed to like this too and it was a major hit in Hong Kong becoming the second highest grossing domestic film of all time (by the time I posted this). The movie even had Midnight Screening in the 2024 Cannes film festival. So if you are looking for the kind of Hong Kong movie with plenty of great fist fight action sequence and a nice friendship story, then I think you would enjoy this like we did. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of  5 stars