After the very successful “Limbo”, the Hong Kong director is back with “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled in”, which promises to be an ultra-violent and ultra-spectacular martial arts film. An impressive trailer has been unveiled, ahead of its presentation at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
A Hong Kong gem in Cannes
Active for more than 25 years, an eminent figure in Hong Kong cinema, Soi Cheang gained international stature after his brilliant thriller Limbo, released in 2023 in France. A sign of this recognition, his new film Twilight of the Warriors: Walled in will be presented in a midnight session at Cannes Film Festival 2024.
In development since the 2000s – when John Woo and Johnnie To were to co-direct it – the film only entered production in November 2021. Finally finished, it will be distributed in China and Hong Kong from from May 1, and will therefore make its premiere on European soil during the Cannes Film Festival.
The return of Sammo Hung
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled in takes place in the Kowloon Citadel, a Chinese enclave of Hong Kong with buildings so dense that it barely let in light, before its destruction in the early 90s. An ideal setting to tell a story of triads and a hunt for spectacular and violent man, while making homage to martial arts cinema in all its forms.
Given the talent assembled in front of Soi Cheang’s camera, including Hong Kong cinema legend Sammo Hung, Louis Koo, Raymond Lam and Richie Jen, and given the impressive images in the trailer (video at the top of the article) we can move forward without too much risk to say that Twilight of the Warriors: Walled in should be an event on the Croisette, and a pure treat for all fans of the genre. Regarding his selection, Thierry Frémaux declared:
Midnight screenings are always a great way to welcome to Cannes a cinema that we might have thought, a few years ago, had no place in Cannes. But who actually has it. For example, Soi Cheang’s Hong Kong brawler film “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” is a genre film that, like Seung’s other film “I, The Executioner”, Wan Ryoo, which is a Korean film, are two genre films that are also great directorial films. Cannes has never shied away from genre cinema and has always considered that the great directors of detective films, swordplay and comedies were also great directors.
