Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In: An Intriguing Idea Hampered by a Weak Narrative

The Film:

In the '90s, manga author Yuyi began his weekly series "City of Darkness" (a title taken from an earlier novel), which tells the story of a young man who is forced to go into hiding in a walled city in Hong Kong that is its own little community. The 32-issue series was rather popular and even had a sequel that ran for an impressive 100 additional issues, so it's hardly a surprise that an adaptation was in the works from pretty early on. An early possibility had the film being directed by John Woo & Johnnie To, with Chow Yun-fat starring, while later it was changed to Derek Kwok directing and Donnie Yen starring. Obviously neither of those came to pass, but at long last, an adaptation has finally arrived (strangely retitled to "Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In") so fans can see their beloved comics come to life on the big screen.

Going into a little more detail of the story, it centers on Chan Lok-kwan (Raymond Lam), a refugee in Hong Kong that attempts to obtain a fake ID from Boss Chau (Sammo Hung). However, he ends up insulting the boss by refusing to join his gang, leading him to steal a bag of drugs and attempt to escape. His flight leads him into the Kowloon Walled City, where he desperately attempts to sell the drugs for money, but quickly finds himself face to face with the city's leader, Cyclone (Louis Koo). Cyclone takes pity on the young man and allows him to stay in the community, where he gets a job and forms relationships with the residents. Eventually we learn that Lok-kwan is someone that Boss Chau has been looking for over the course of several years, which inevitably leads to a major confrontation that will determine control of the walled city.

"Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In" is one of those films that starts off pretty well as it establishes its characters, storyline, and setting, giving us a mildly-interesting tale of a young man who's desperate to find a life for himself. To start, all he wants is an ID, but in his quest for that, he unexpectedly finds himself in a community that he soon wants to call home. Now this would be all well and good if it were a small part of the main storyline, as it doesn't encompasses very much by itself, but sadly what we find here instead is the film's first major issue.

Instead of establishing this part of the narrative and then moving on to the next, it's content to linger on it for quite some time, putting the characters into a kind of holding pattern as Lok-kwan becomes familiar with the city and its residents. Only after about half of the two-hour runtime has elapsed does it finally get around to advancing the story, bringing us to its other major issue in the form of a rather nonsensical revenge plot.

The somewhat convoluted story goes that Lok-kwan is the son of the man who killed Boss Chau's family, and so the latter has been hunting the former in order to exact vengeance. The problem is that Lok-kwan had nothing to do with the murder of his family and his father has been dead for several years, and yet, in Chau's mind, killing this innocent kid would make for appropriate vengeance (That would really show Lok-kwan's dead father who's boss... I guess?). Not that this part of the plot really matters in particular anyway, as it's simply used as the impetus for the impending power struggle and multitude of fights thrown into the prolonged finale, but still, surely they could have developed something a little more logical to base the third act on.

Overall, "Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In" (they really should've kept the original title) has the start of a decent story, and a number of well-choreographed fights, but it's dragged out far too long at two hours and really needed a more solid lead-in to its main plot. Having never read the original comics, I can't say if this is a good adaptation per se, but if these issues were prevalent in the source material as well, then surely some artistic license could've been taken to smooth them out in its journey to the big screen. Sadly, as it is, it's part of an intriguing idea that simply isn't sufficiently developed, resulting in a dramatic actioner that just doesn't have the impact it so desperately wants to have.

Conclusion:

"Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In" has the start of an intriguing story and some well-choreographed action throughout, but the film is excessively padded out to its two-hour runtime and depends far too much on its convoluted backstory & nonsensical revenge plot, ultimately making for a dramatic martial arts outing that is quickly forgotten.

Score: 2.5/5

Now available on 4K, Blu-ray, and Digital.

Follow me on Twitter @BeckFilmCritic.