Every week this May, Houston Chronicle Arts Editor Cary Darling hosts a foreign action film that proves kicking ass is a universal language.
Soi Cheang's action-packed "Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In" may have been released in 2025 but it's heart and soul rest in the 1980s. It's not only a stylistic throwback to the classic martial arts-films of nearly a half-century ago but it's also set in mid-80s Hong Kong in the now demolished high-rise slum known as Kowloon Walled City, a dark, dank place where the sun rarely penetrated and criminality sprouted like mushrooms. In fact, the film at one point reportedly was to be co-directed by John Woo and Johnnie To and feature a veritable hall of fame of '80s-era actors including Chow Yun-fat, Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, as well as Nicolas Cage and James McAvoy. Wait, what? As it stands, it does feature Sammo Hung, known for his work with Jackie Chan on such films from that bygone era as "Project A" and "Dragons Forever." He proves in his role as the gangster Mr. Big that being seventy-something doesn't mean he can't still kick ass. But the main star is Raymond Lam as a refugee from mainland China who runs afoul of the gangsters running Kowloon Walled City and has nobody to depend on but himself. While the look of the film is impressively vivid and the action is non-stop, there's a palpable and surprising sense of sadness and nostalgia in the end credits as photos of the real Walled City, torn down and replaced by a park in the early '90s, show a world that may have been hard but was also indelibly human. (Cary Darling)
