Interface News Reporter | Hu Yujing
Interface News Editor | Jiang Yan
During the May Day period, the movie "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" directed by Zheng Baorui and starring Louis Koo, Lin Feng and others was released, and the word-of-mouth was ahead of other live-action movies in the same May Day schedule, and the Douban score was second only to the re-release of Hayao Miyazaki's movie "Howl's Moving Castle", and it still continued the long-tail effect in the post-May Day schedule, and the box office has exceeded 420 million.
"Kowloon Walled City" tells the story of an anarchist walled city in Hong Kong, China in the 1980s, and from a stylistic point of view, the film combines the extreme style of Hong Kong films with the gangster culture of action crime films, as well as the exaggerated elements of the comic book version of the original novel. The film's excavation of the history of the walled city and the stories of the little people, and the theme reflects the mental state of Hong Kong people's wandering and identity on the eve of Hong Kong's return to the motherland, so "Kowloon Walled City" also has a richer space for interpretation.
The man's walled city rivers and lakes, the familiar Hong Kong market
According to the information on the official website of the Kowloon Walled City Park, the Kowloon Walled City was built in the Song Dynasty and was originally a small fortress at that time, but it was rebuilt and improved by the Qing government after the Qing Dynasty as a military fortress in China. In the early 20th century, the influx of criminals and fugitives who settled in the walled neighborhood led to a surging population that became a hotbed of filth and filth, with illegal industries such as drug trafficking, illegal gambling, prostitution and unlicensed dentists becoming commonplace. The Walled City is known for its high-density buildings, which at one point were crowded with more than 300 interconnected buildings. In 1987, the British government gradually took control of the city, and the Kowloon Walled City was finally demolished and replaced by the Kowloon Walled City Park in 1995.
The older creator in the film also talked about the walled city in his memory in the trailer. Director Zheng Baorui called it a "declining castle" that had been glorious, and Louis Koo considered it a "non-land" and was known as the "three regardless" zone. The exterior is very lively, but there seems to be an "invisible boundary" outside the walled city, and the interior is dirty and messy, with a sense of mystery.
The movie restores the historical appearance of the walled city, and "beautifies" it as a small river and lake, which outsiders dare not easily step into. In the play, the tornado played by Louis Koo is the core figure of the last power struggle in the walled city, he leads the next generation of "four young people in the walled city" to manage the operation and external affairs of the walled city, like a big gang in a martial arts film, resisting the invasion of foreign enemies and dealing with internal crimes, but most of the time, the stability of the walled city is maintained by some kind of conscious consciousness.
Of course, the protagonists of Jianghu Dream are still men, the force value is extraordinary, righteousness is supreme, the martial arts scenes are full of blood, and women can only be bordered. Similar to "Flying Life 2" at the beginning of the year, "Kowloon Walled City" is almost an "all-male team", the prostitute who was beaten to death by her husband in the film does not have a positive shot, Xinyi, one of the four young people, was cut off by the villain Wang Jiu, Yan Fen immediately rushed out of nowhere to bandage him, the male protagonist Chen Luojun first entered the city and was starved and beaten, and Yudanmei gave him her own drink...... In short, they are all auxiliary and warm characters. It may seem a bit "demanding" for the audience to see a brilliant female character in a gangster action movie, but this also shows the stereotype and lack of innovation.
In terms of depiction of life in the city, "Kowloon Walled City" has the delicacy common to classic Hong Kong films such as Ann Hui's "Days and Nights in Tin Shui Wai" and Luo Qirui's "The Thief of Time". Although the sewage cross-flow and the narrow lanes are like a labyrinth, because of the cramped living space, the neighbors are close and help each other, forming a self-sufficient community, with processing factories such as roasted meat, fish balls, candy, toys, and textiles, which are very market-like, and this common psychology and special way of community connection are the basis of the autonomy of the walled city.
In the film, Uncle Sichuan and Chongqing repeatedly taught Chen Luojun played by Lin Feng to make lo-mei at a very fast speed, and the fish ball girl who was less than 10 years old was familiar with kung fu at hand, after the end of the feature film, with the imagination of the "Four Youths of the Walled City" for the future of the Walled City and Hong Kong, the protagonists on the screen became the men, women and children in the Walled City, adults worked hard, children frolicked, the camera close-up of the shoemaker, the process of making steamed buns and noodles, and the four young people of the Walled City chatted: "Take a few more looks, Hong Kong has become very fast...... But some things don't change. In the same vein as Huang Zhan's "Under the Lion Rock", the director's voice of "Kowloon Walled City" is still to praise the strong and optimistic outlook on life of the grassroots of Hong Kong people, and the civic spirit of being united in the same boat.
The kite lands and the wanderer returns home
"Kowloon Walled City" reproduces the fierceness of Hong Kong gangster action films, and also contains praise for the spirit of Hong Kong citizens in the details, and in more fragmented lens language, "Kowloon Walled City" also hides the wandering mood of Hong Kong for many years and on the eve of returning to the motherland. The film is set in the 1980s, and at the end, the news background sound on TV shows that the British government of Hong Kong has returned Hong Kong to China, and experts discuss the future of the walled city.
In the film, under the square sky divided by countless dirty wires, Louis Koo flies the kite in his hand many times, "I didn't expect that this place can also fly kites", but just like the metaphor of his character name "Tornado", he is like a gust of wind in the walled city, which will eventually disappear with the collapse of the walled city, and the kite will eventually land. Tornado apparently foresaw this outcome, and he muttered "predestined" several times in the film, which seems to be a response to the grievances of two generations that need to be ended with his life, and at the same time refers to the fate of the walled city to be demolished.
And Chen Luojun's experience in the film can also echo the fate of Hong Kong. Chen Luojun was born in Hong Kong, and was taken out of Hong Kong by his mother because of gang fighting when he was a child, and when he became an adult, he smuggled back to Hong Kong by mistake, begging for an identity card, hoping to become a legitimate Hong Kong person. After the tornado died, the four young men of the walled city fought hard against the gangster Wang Jiu and took back the ownership of the walled city back into their own hands, but the years of anarchy in the walled city were numbered, and they sat on the roof and imagined the future, when a huge plane flew overhead and landed at Kai Tak Airport, the plane was the same as a kite, signaling the end of the drift and returning to their hometown. This is the wanderer's mood hidden in "Kowloon Walled City" after the gangster action movie.
The leading actor Lin Feng mentioned in an interview that he is very glad that someone made such a film to record this period of history in Hong Kong, China, and let the world know about the existence of the walled city. Perhaps because every inch of land is at a premium, urban space has subtly shaped the character of Hong Kong people, who toss and turn in the oppressive space to survive, showing strong resilience to life.
In recent years, Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing and other cities have repeatedly appeared in film and television dramas, but in different works, these cities seem to be labeled as relatively stereotyped, Shanghai Pudong three-piece set is the background board for urban beauties to fall in love, Chengdu's Internet celebrity hot pot restaurant is the preferred shooting base for comedy films, and Chongqing is favored by science fiction and suspense film directors because of its own three-dimensional pattern, but the cityscape and people's fate are not closely combined. Entertainment self-media "Entertainment Hard Candy" once summarized the template of a women's topic drama set in Shanghai, "Born in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, my family lives in Shanghai; worry about the house, worry about the in-laws; not only to manage the family and career, but also to tear the junior to protect the children. "The city seems to be a functional pool for superimposing buffs on hot search topics for characters, and at the same time, it is also a setting for targeted marketing of fans and audiences in a certain place, most of which have strong instrumentality.
In Hong Kong movies, Hong Kong is rarely polished into a glamorous financial city, but is full of market gas and Jianghu atmosphere, with extremely high granularity. Whether it's the dark walled city in Kung Fu and Kowloon Walled City, the Xinglin Nursing Home in The Thief of Time and Sister Peach, or the streetside McDonald's in Tsim Sha Tsui and McDonald's in Sweet Honey, Hong Kong's cityscape is always associated with a group of special people and a specific historical memory.