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hof Ong Kong Kowloon Walled City – once the most densely populated place on Earth – is the perfect movie set: a Piranian maze of miserable high-rises and dark, narrow streets teeming with crooks, lowlifes, drug addicts and poor families running small businesses, legal and otherwise. Set in the 1980s, this action epic lovingly and meticulously recreates the infamous neighborhood (which was demolished in 1994), but unfortunately the background is more interesting than the story.
At its core, it’s a story about a Chinese immigrant caught between rival gangs. Street fighter Chan Lok-kwan (Raymond Lam) is initially duped by local triad boss Mr. Big (a cigar-smoking caricature by veteran Jackie Chan sidekick Samo Hung). Chan retaliates by stealing a package, and after a great bus chase scene, he stumbles upon the Walled City, a no-go zone for Mr. Big’s thugs, as it’s run by local boss Cyclone (Louis Koo). In addition to running a barber shop and smoking like a chimney despite dying of lung disease, Cyclone rules the giant slum as a benevolent dictator, collecting rents but also caring for its citizens and maintaining some sort of order. He and the rest of the Walled City community take Chan under their wing, and this hard-working orphan begins to feel at home for the first time—until a highly unlikely twist of fate sets all factions on the path to all-out gang war.
Much of this warfare is fought with a combination of fists, feet, blades, and assorted ironwork; people are routinely thrown through walls, thrown off rooftops, and otherwise beaten to death, and the athleticism and fight choreography are impressive, even if the action is edited so frenetically that it’s nearly impossible to follow. However, the story’s setbacks take away some of the excitement. The characters are almost cartoonish to take seriously – not least a great final bad guy (martial artist Philip Ng) who cackles like a hyena and is somehow magically invulnerable – and there are no female leads to speak of. If only they had paid as much attention to the plot as to the setting.
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