« City Of Darkness », avec Louis Koo. METROPOLITAN FILM EXPORT
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Review Action thriller by Soi Cheang, with Louis Koo, Raymond Lam, Terrance Lau, Sammo Hung (Hong Kong, 2h05). In theaters August 14 ★★★★☆
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The second film to be released this summer by the virtuoso camera mercenary Soi Cheang, after “Mad Fate”, is the best. 1980s. An undocumented migrant, Chan Lok-kwun arrives in Hong Kong and, to escape the triads, takes refuge in the Kowloon Citadel, a vertical shanty town rising fourteen stories high. Live there the outlaws of the island, illegal immigrants, petty criminals and prostitutes, under the authority of the charismatic Cyclone. Soon, a gang war breaks out. This is only the beginning of a crazy spectacle, a hybridization worthy of the golden age of Hong Kong cinema but boosted for today’s audiences during delirious action scenes: the superpowers of Marvel productions mix with the aerial brutality of martial arts choreography.
Dark and naive, farcical and romantic, this generous entertainment is like the Kowloon citadel, a Tower of Babel of odds and ends where an improbable melting pot survives. From this interlacing of cables, concrete and steel, the director of “Limbo” makes a character in its own right. A picturesque fauna frolics there, some linked by villainy, others by loyalty. Pierce, in finean affectionate nostalgia for a vanished Hong Kong and for its genre cinema, a land of welcome and freedom in the face of the external empire.
