Twilight of the Warriors

By Sebastian Torrelio

As a parallel to the community of the Hong Kong territory in the 1980s, the walls of Kowloon City, the one-time densest populated living area in the world, served opposing purposes. To keep out and to keep in; to bridge divides equally as to rupture connections. An endless inspiration in media as an enclave in which culture can evolve independently, featured in the spread that encompasses manga, video games, painting and literature, it now marks the second-highest grossing domestic film in Hong Kong’s history.

Raymond Lam’s Lok leads Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, the first in a proposed (and greenlit) blockbuster martial arts trilogy by Soi Cheang. A runaway refugee, desperately seeking board and security, finds himself under the support and practical tutelage of triad leader Cyclone (Louis Koo). He bonds with a small cohort of three other younger generational action talents to defend the sanctuary of the Walled City from the threatened invasion of Mr. Big (Sammo Hung) in a series of combative and political face-offs that turn familial, and thoroughly personal.

Twilight of the Warriors kicks off with an initial fight that may be its best, a multi-various cat-and-mouse chase with Lok on the run using every possible element at his disposal – yanked metal rebar slams into wood, scaffolding wrenched apart with makeshift blades, human beings thrown into concrete like CGI monkey limbs. What could be easily mistaken for vibes is Cheung Ka-fai’s seamlessly done edit job, choreographed between cuts and music, a balanced display of frenetic weaponry language that spontaneously creates new words. 

It is immediately apparent that Twilight of the Warriors has two amazingly large graces, the second its inspiringly recreated production design work. Modeled after the original architecture, torn down in 1993, every lived-in detail about Cheang’s sets feel less as practical as they do authentic. Glances of printed copy, taped art and store shop advertisement go by while characters leap and fall between awnings and onto telephone wire, yet Cheang keeps a steady-enough alley-aligned view to give a sense of encampment that could never have been built overnight. The residents of Kowloon wear rags and garments in equal measure in a land where there is no outside, only the reconfiguration of value inside.

To make all of this out of Cheang’s aesthetic is entirely the point – to standalone, Twilight of the Warriors is book-ended by chapters of beginning and end to Lok’s journey, a sized-down epic that brings peasant into the coincidental alignment of civil royalty. This is the sort of drama that Westerners will easily align with Star Wars-types – a greater evil defeated, another protégé of said evil taking its place, the cycle continuing in formal ‘unrest’ fashion until the old guard is killed off, leading the way for a new guard to inhabit their trauma.

Tale as old as time, but for the modern Hong Kong (and broader Chinese) audience, Twilight of the Warriors hearkens to a stubborn desire, the kind that consciously fights in support of forgotten art. By the final climatic clash of Twilight, which draws on its protagonists to problem-solve their way out of a villain grown to American superhero-levels of untenable malevolence, Kowloon City has been in and out of beleaguered rule, torn between bureaucratic guards that all seek to support their own in a sanctuary bent keenly on living free from marginalization.

The cycle of evil self-perpetuates the cycle of good, as will the cycle of art and artists keep boosting Cheang and his contemporaries who want to put in the good effort to make an homage to cultural institution. Therein lies the philosophy of the once towering walled-complex – the sun never set on its story because it never organically rose there to begin with.

Seen at AMC Atlantic Times Square 14, Monterey Park

Joyland

Immerse yourself in the patriarchy embedded in a traditional family in Lahore, Pakistan with Joyland. Don’t let the upbeat title mislead you. Whilst there are some warm moments in Haider’s queer coming of age story, his awakening is framed as a privilege of his gender. The women are all victims of the patriarchy whether they’re within the family house or outside it.

Despite being confined to a wheelchair, the grandfather is still the head of the household consisting of his two sons and their wives, as well as his eldest son’s many children. Haider, the youngest son, holds the focus of the first half of the film as he transitions from a house husband supporting his wife, to a husband seeing other women and turning his wife into a house-wife. The focus on Haider is representative of the patriarchal society he exists within. The audience initially sympathizes with him because he’s looked down on by the men of his family for his assumption of traditionally female role. Because of this set up, his queer coming of age is celebrated as it feels like he’s finally able to come out of his shell. The focus on his budding romance with his boss are some of the happiest moments of the film. However, in the second half of the film, his queer coming of age is framed as his male privilege.

Whilst Haider is out finding himself, his wife, Mumtaz, has been forced by Haider’s family to resign from her dream job and assume the domestic responsibilities expected of a wife. Simultaneously her narrative is overshadowed by Haider’s. Her screen time slowly diminishes as Haider’s grows. Even her star entrepreneurial scene from the start of the movie – in which she uses phone flash-lights to complete her job during a blackout – is hijacked by her husband when he pulls the same trick for his crush later in the film. Mumtaz’s repression by the patriarchy is represented in the empathy and upbeat scenes that are given to her husband, at the expense of hers.

Joyland is a technically faultless film – something you’d expect from a Cannes winner – and captures the dynamics of the patriarchy in Pakistan perfectly. However, whilst its Queer Palm win promises a progressive or unique portrayal of Queerness, Joyland doesn’t really stretch any boundaries here. Haider’s relationship with Biba, the only queer relationship in the film, is sacrificed for a melodramatic finale. Her role, whilst played brilliantly, mostly exists to be the exotic temptress for Haider’s macho-turn.


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No Bears

Despite a 20 year ban on making or directing movies imposed on him in 2010, Jafar Panahi continues to make films. No Bears is the fifth feature film Panahi has made since the ban, and is probably his most political. The not one, but two films in No Bears are an attack on the hypocrisies of censorship and freedom of movement.

Now that Panahi has proved the house arrest and ban on film-making cannot stop him from making films, he’s been encouraged to make something even more inflammatory – an almost direct critique of the government and of laws against the freedom of movement. In No Bears, Panahi deliberately flaunts all of the rules that have been imposed on him. Firstly, he’s directing one film, and starring in another, breaking his filmmaking ban once again. Secondly, he shows he can make films from wherever he wants – he’s relaxing in a rural village near the border and directing his film crew in another country, as well as making a film in the village where he is staying. Thirdly, he’s creating new filmmakers – both in his cameraman shooting his film in Turkey and in the people he hands off his camera to in the village. Lastly, he also shows he can go wherever he wants. He goes right up to the Turkish border as if it’s nothing. All of these things deliberately flaunt his power in spite of the government’s restrictions on him. He proves that they’ll never silence him from making films, whether that’s in Iran or outside it, with him behind the camera or having inspired someone else.

On top of this, Panahi also sets up two films within No Bears to criticize the government and the culture is has fostered. One is a film within a film, following the story of a couple in Turkey that have finally found fake passports on the black market to leave the country. This narrative highlights the discrimination in freedom of movement – granted to certain people because of birth lottery, and hidden from others. The other follows Panahi himself, as he works on this film from a rural Iranian village along the Turkish border. The longer he stays, the more entangled he becomes in the backward customs of the town. This narrative serves as an analogy for the hypocrisies of the Iranian government and censorship committees. Just as they imposed filmmaking bans on him instead of looking to solve the problems he highlights in his films, the villagers choose to make him a scapegoat for their own feuds.

For a film that holds no punches in attacking censorship and freedom of movement, Panahi’s latest is a joy to watch. It’s filled with a dry humor that pokes fun of the establishment whilst retaining a serious message. Just as much as this, No Bears is also a testament to the filmmaking drive of Jafar Panahi. No matter how many restrictions are imposed against him, he’s continued to make films and inspire others. We hope he, and the Iranian filmmakers imprisoned with him earlier this year will be released and the filmmaking bans rescinded.


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Before, Now & Then

In Before, Now & Then, Nana finds security in a second marriage to a wealthy old man, having lost her family to the war in West Java. However, she cannot escape the dreams and trauma of her past, or the expectations of her new family and becomes a ghostly figure until she meets one of her husband’s mistresses. Together they can escape and find their own freedom.

Stylistically, Before, Now & Then feels heavily influenced by Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love. Whilst the colors are more muted, the dreamy pacing and slowed down scenes between Nana and her second husband feel just like the slow romantic scenes between the two protagonists in In the Mood for Love. These scenes in both films are designed to convey uncertainty. In In the Mood for Love the uncertainty is romantic – we don’t know if the two characters will keep seeing each other. In Before, Now & Then, the uncertainty is melancholic. Similarly, we don’t know if the two characters will be together for much longer, however given that the two characters have been together for a while, it feels as if their relationship is dying instead of burning brightly.

The uncertainty of Nana’s relationship is symbolic of the state of the country. Just like the current Indonesian regime, she knows what she’s getting from her stable marriage to an older husband. Whilst it has confined her mostly to the house – and the back of the house at that, as she rarely shows her face publicly – she knows that she will be taken care of. However, there is no love in their relationship. The new freedom she gains with her husband’s mistress, in contrast, is exciting. It fills her with hope that things could be different and more free.

Whilst we have the hindsight to know that the political change happening in the background of Before, Now & Then wasn’t a positive one, the film captures the uncertainty of the times well with it’s dreaminess.


Head to our AFI Fest 2022 Hub for more reviews from AFI Fest 2022.