Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In was screened to a full house on October 28, ahead of a Masterclass by acclaimed director Soi Cheang at the 38th Tokyo International Film Festival. The film was released this past January in Japan and made ¥500 million—the largest box-office take for a Hong Kong film in half a decade—while remaining in theaters for a whole five months. So given the thunderous applause the director received as he came on stage for the Masterclass, the moderator couldn’t resist asking the audience, “Why are you still watching this film so long after it was released?!”
 
Twilight has been lauded as a full-on return to the grand tradition of Hong Kong action cinema, perhaps even surpassing that tradition in terms of plotting and character development. The protagonist is a poor migrant who is cheated by one triad and then chased into the arms of a second, to which he then swears allegiance out of a sense of gratitude and fraternal belonging. The walled city of Kowloon in the early 1990s—a real place—is so vividly rendered that overcoming its maze-like structure is an enormous feat, not just for the characters but for Cheang; and the denizens of this demimonde are themselves vivid relics of a lost era.
 
As the maestro sat down to guide the audience through his own creative journey, it became clear that his career has not only been eventful, but long, since he entered the business when he was only 19. He emphasized the difficulties of making action cinema in Hong Kong these days, in particular. It took him a long time to “discover my methods,” he said. “What I see is very dark, it’s a desperate way of thinking. But through those methods I have been able to maintain a sense of beauty. That is the starting point.”
 
He’s had help along the way, especially from another Hong Kong action master, Johnnie To, who produced a number of his films (and conducted his own Masterclass at TIFF last year, when he was serving as a juror). Speaking about his 2012 Motorway, Cheang recalled, “A lot of that movie was a disaster. It mostly had to do with the budget. It was the first time I’d ever staged a car chase, and I tried to shoot the scenes in my own way. But when it was being edited, I was already doing another film in China. They sent me a rough cut and it was not okay. In fact, it was just awful.”
 
That’s when To came to the rescue. “I asked him if he’d seen the rough cut. The studio wanted the movie to be completed as soon as possible. I didn’t know what to do, so I went back to Hong Kong to supervise the editing. Johnnie To is a great producer—he allowed me to reshoot some scenes and even put up his own money to pay for it.” Cheang added that the reshoot took 15 days and To commented that he himself could have done it in 8.
 
To obviously taught Cheang a lot, especially about how to tell a story. “From the beginning, he said to me, ‘The ending doesn’t have to be happy. But there should be some hope.’ When he directs, Johnnie To makes many demands, but when he produces, he doesn’t interfere with the director’s vision.”
 
Between 2014 and 2018 Cheang made a series of historical fantasies based on the classic Chinese story Journey to the West, retitled The Monkey King. The three movies in the series were large-scale productions, making it difficult to be creative. “But I learned a lot. Actually, during the shooting, I felt as if I were losing myself,” he said about the series. “When I finally finished The Monkey King 3, I asked myself if I still wanted to make films, so I took some time off. Otherwise, I might not be here with you now.”
 
Of course, everybody wanted to know when the sequel to Twilight of the Warriors would come out. It had been announced early on that there would be a prequel, as well. “We start shooting next March,” said Cheang. “I don’t know about a release date. We’ll try to shoot it as quickly as possible. And then we’ll shoot the prequel.”
 
“I think I’m very lucky,” he said about the success of Twilight. “I talked a lot today about making movies, but, in truth, I’m not very organized, so I hope you were able to take away something useful. When I look back on my life, I see times when I was lost or depressed. When you’re creative you don’t always know where to go, but sometimes the results are good. That’s what happened with Twilight, and I’m grateful to TIFF for showing it and giving me the chance to talk about it.”
 
Soi Cheang Masterclass
Soi Cheang Masterclass & “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In”
Guests: Soi Cheang (Director), Kurei Hibiki (Moderator/Film critic)