Rating: ***
Review Date: 8/11/24
Music: Kenji Kawai
Cast: Louis Koo, Samo Hung, Richie Jen, Aaron Kwok, Raymond Lam,
Chun-Him Lau, Philip Ng
After Cyclone (Louis Koo) kills a ruthless enforcer named Jim (Aaron Kwok), peace inside the Walled City Of Kowloon has been stable. Cyclone is a respected fighter and rules with a firm, but caring hand, and the other triads leave him alone. Twenty years later, a refugee named Chan Lok-kwan (Raymond Lam) comes to Hong Kong and gets scammed by Mr. Big (Samo Hung) when he refuses to work for him. Desperate for cash, he steals a bag of drugs and makes a run for Kowloon City, where Cyclone eventually takes pity on him and helps him out. Unfortunately, Mr. Big won't drop the incident so easily, and with the future of Kowloon uncertain, he decides to take over Cyclone's territory by force. To make matters worse, another triad boss named Chau also has unsettled business with Chan, which reignites old feuds and upsets the power balance. Kowloon City eventually becomes a full-blown battleground as triad thugs take over and Chan's friends desperately try to smuggle him out of the city.
Based on the novel "City Of Darkness," it's a lavish big-budget production with no fewer than eleven major studios backing it. Watching all of the studio logos during the opening credits became comical because I wasn't sure it would ever end. Reportedly, they built a life-size replica of the walled city to shoot in, and furnished it with props from the 80s to make it look as realistic as possible. It makes an admirable attempt to recreate the look and feel of classic 80s Hong Kong cinema, but it falls a little short. Sadly, that era has passed and we'll never see the likes of it again. That said, the lighting, cinematography, and art direction are fantastic and it's an absolutely gorgeous film. It's very colorful, and while the recent trend in Asian cinema is to be overly garish, the palette in "Twilight Of The Warriors" is delightfully subtle. Every frame looks like a masterful piece of art, and the claustrophobic setting lends a lot of texture and depth. Kenji Kawai's excellent music score adds another rich layer to the presentation.
I've never been a fan of Louis Koo, but he gives an admirably restrained and respectable performance here. He also smokes A LOT of cigarettes. While the veteran actors get star billing, it's the younger generation that carries the film and handles most of the work. Raymond Lam gives a fantastic physical performance as Chan, who seems to have superhuman fighting skills. Chun-Him Lau is wonderful as Cyclone's sexy righthand man and Philip Ng nearly steals the show as Mr. Big's flamboyant, psychotic, and nigh-invincible enforcer, King. The fight scenes and choreography are very good, but the camera work and editing tend to be a bit spastic. Apart from a handful of unconvincing wire stunts, the CGI elements are remarkably subtle and seamless, which is a nice change from the norm. It's good to see Hong Kong cinema catching up with the state of the art, but I'm sure it wasn't cheap. The biggest disappointment for me was that in an otherwise very grounded film, King's supernatural "spirit power" seemed extremely out of place and ruined the mood. He came across like one of Lo Lieh's ridiculous laughing white-haired villains from an 80s period piece, and the good guys have to team up to find his weak spot. That turned the final act into an over-the-top fantasy set piece rather than a dramatic showdown.
Regardless, despite being overly long and having no female characters to speak of, I enjoyed "Twilight Of The Warriors" quite a bit. Its themes of honor, loyalty, brotherhood, humility, duty, and revenge resonate well, and the charismatic characters are all realistic and relatable (apart from King, who is a total wildcard). The recreation of Kowloon City is amazing, and it's clear that a lot of effort went into making that environment as realistic as possible. While I'm missing the cultural hooks, I'm sure that it was very nostalgic for native audiences to see that. The closing credits also offer a sincere and poignant observation of daily life in the city, which ends the film on a sentimental note. Cities by themselves aren't special. It's the people who live in them that make them special.