Set in 1980’s Hong Kong where refugee Chan Lok Kwan (Raymond Lam) gets scammed by triad boss Mr Big (Sammo Hung) and in a moment of rashness runs off with what he thinks is a bag of money but turns out to be much more valuable drugs. Pursued by Mr Big’s gang he runs into the Walled City knowing they would not be able to follow and immediately gets into trouble for “shit-stirring” by trying to offload the drugs. Local head of security Cyclone (Louis Koo) easily deals with him and dislocates his arm leading him to crawl off to lick his wounds.

Something strange then happens with the local residents actually showing kindness to him by giving him food and leftover soda pop and a strange man we later know to be AV (Man Kit Cheung) instructs him to crawl down from his hiding spot and go to a balcony with a certain colour railing.

He is surprised to come face to face with Cyclone again who seems a lot more reasonable this time and admires his guts for taking him on and offers him a job. Chan Lok Kwan again refuses to be a triad but agrees to do any work available and Cyclone helps him out by taking back the bag of drugs and paying off Mr Big in a funny scene.

It does go on from there and does have several climaxes even if you kind of guess what the main character actually ends up being it is still fun to get there.

This movie has been getting a lot of rave reviews and I would agree with them, even the people working in the industry were so excited about it I was seeing rough cuts of trailers and people putting up stuff as soon as it became available. There was an extended development time for the movie due to COVID and there is already a rip-off for it which is always a good sign a movie is successful in the Hong Kong way of it.

The plot really does emphasise getting from one fight to another but also takes the time to develop the characters which makes you actually care about them when stuff happens. The bus fight scene happens so fast you hardly even clock that it is a beat of beat repeat of the Police Story bus scene but sped up even more. There was a lot more wirework in this film but they did a good job on the special effects and it is more comic book style action towards the back end of the film.

As with Hong Kong movies of the Shaw Brothers vintage the older actors such as Sammo Hung, Lois Koo and Richie Jen get to play the bosses and being the ones who stop fights rather than start them. Philip Ng as Mr Big’s right hand man King seems to relish his role as the unstoppable badass with “internal powers” that means his can’t be pierced and it does make it much better when four of the characters team up to take him down.

The fight scenes are all top-notch and very inventive with characters just grabbing random things and parkouring all over the place when running over the rooftops and all over the set. Not really a spoiler but they do end up using a motorbike in a fight which ends up going about as well as you would expect.

The sets and art direction are really top-notch and they even have the scenes over the credits showing how much work they put into some of the sets we don’t even get to see in the movie. All the shops had stock and people pretending to run them and the Walled City does look very gritty and dirty. The scenes with the planes flying overhead do seem to be played up however.

I did like the cinematography especially with Lok hiding in the shadows when he goes back to confront the gang for the last time. Seeing as they spent so much effort on the sets they do look good on screen and it is an interesting setting for the scenes. It is a very interior type of movie with very few external scenes and Hong Kong has changed so much a lot of those had to be CGI anyway.

Some confusing plotting with the jumping backwards and forwards at times but they have to advance the story. I am sure they could easily do a prequel with the first fight back in the 1950s and the younger characters played by other actors but that is usually the third movie the second one is the sequel.

I was happy to get to see this with a big audience, I was going to try and see it at Chinatown Cinema for old time’s sake but that screening was on too late. Not sure how long this is going to be in cinema release for with Furiosa opening on the same day but I would try and make an effort go and see it on the big screen if you can as it is better that way.

Rating: 5/5

Movie details:

Director: Soi Cheang

Writers: Kin-Yee Au, Tai-Lee Chan, Li Jun, Kwan-Sin Shum

Based on the comic book by Yi Yu

Starring: Louis Koo, Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Aaron Kwok, Richie Jen, Raymond Lam, Chun-Him Lau, Philip Ng, Tony Tsz-Tung Wu, Man Kit Cheung, Cecilia Choi, Pak Hon Chu, Fish Liew, Tak-Bun Wong, Terrance Lau Chun-Him, Kenny Wong Tak-Ban, Tony Wu Tsz-Tung, German Cheung

Action Choreographer: Tanigaki Kenji

Cinematography: Siu-Keung Cheng

Country: China/Hong Kong

Language: Cantonese with English Subtitles

Length: 126min

Trailer: