People of Kowloon Walled City back in the spotlight
Gritty Kowloon Walled City narrative in the finest Hong Kong-styled tradition
Kowloon Walled City: A Cinematic Journey Movie Set Exhibition recreates the appearance prior to its demolition
City of Darkness: Kowloon Walled City
Hong Kong’s fabled and mysterious Kowloon Walled City is back in the spotlight.
Colloquially known as the City of Darkness, decades have passed since its concrete walls loomed tall and menacing. Kowloon Walled City and/or City of Darkness is also referred to with respect and awe as simply the City.
Kowloon Walled City was a self-sustaining enclave with small businesses providing basic necessities for local residents
The movie Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In stirred a wave of nostalgia and curiosity for the City.
This film depicts the City as a main character – a gritty, raw and nuanced place for an action-packed narrative in the finest Hong Kong-styled film tradition.
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The shared hardships experienced by the characters in the movie are a reminder that even the darkest places can bring out the best in people.
Vendors hawked locally made goods along the narrow alleys and dark streets
The film made an impact with its official selection for the midnight screening at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
It has since garnered many awards and accolades, including Best Film, Director, Cinematography, Editing, Art Direction, Costume and Makeup, Action Choreography, Sound, and Visual Effects at the Forty-third Hong Kong Film Awards.
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Most importantly, it has made millions at the global box office.
The fabled City has caught the public’s attention with the movie’s critical and commercial success.
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
It is no wonder that Hong Kong’s tourism officials took notice and ingeniously thought about ways to capitalise and ride on the coattails of the film’s success.
The answer has come from initiatives to use the movie sets to entice more interest in Hong Kong and, in general, draw in more tourists.
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Last year, the Hong Kong International Airport hosted its own Live out the Cinematic Charm of Hong Kong Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In exhibition.
This exhibition produced a double-story set with a massive Kowloon Walled City neon sign to greet visitors at the arrival hall. This first attempt at capitalising on the residual brand halo effect from the movie was a hit.
Artefacts in the exhibition shares a slice-of life of former residents and the games they played such as Mahjong
The publicity it created for an authentic immersive experience of the City was enormous, igniting interest among both locals and visitors in exploring Hong Kong’s cultural and historical heritage.
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To fan the flames more so, and in a second act, so to speak, the Kowloon Walled City: A Cinematic Journey movie set exhibition, on the site of the original City, offers visitors a stunning walk back in time to 1980s-era Hong Kong.
Movie set of authentic Kowloon Walled City
Eight exhibition rooms have been set up to display remakes of the movie sets with authentic relics to provide a real look and feel of some of the scenes from the film.
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This showcase is outstanding. It shows Hong Kong film professionals’ tremendous creativity and skills, demonstrating why they won top honours for design and visual effects.
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In recreates the chaos and disorder of the Walled City in the 80s – no matter how difficult the situation, residents strived to survive
The craftsmanship and realism of the scenery propel visitors into another time and place. The charm of the residents and the bleakness of the city are palpable.
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Emphasising the claustrophobia of the real City, the sets are smaller than life size, allowing for only a few visitors at any one time.
Hong Kong Post Office provided service in the Kowloon Walled City
Hosting the exhibition within the park’s Yamen Building enhances the authenticity of this engagement with the past.
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The Yamen Building is based on the traditional three-hall structure, with the exhibition sets featured in each of the three interior sections. The outdoor courtyard mimics the appearance of the City’s exterior and façade.
In Room 1, at the entrance, is a huge Flower Board traditionally used in festivals, grand occasions, and ceremonies.
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The flower board exhibit points to a pivotal scene in Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, when the villain moves to exert his power and takes control of the City during the Yu Lan Festival.
A flower board display used in traditional religious festivals, grand openings and inauguration ceremonies
The villain’s timing is appropriately sinister, as Yu Lan is also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, when prayers and burnt offerings were made to satisfy ghosts and gods.
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Room 2 presents a classic Grocery Store stacked and stuffed with all the items one can need and want within the City.
Grocery stores were only several square feet in size, yet stacked high up to the ceiling and packed with everyday goods and served as social hubs where residents gathered to chat and exchange news
The chaotic look belies that the shabby place was a lifeline for the residents. These supplied all daily necessities and served as a hub for community interactions and social exchange.
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At its peak, the City housed more than 33,000 residents. While residents purchased food and drinks at these stores, merchants and shoppers caught up on the latest gossip and news.
Stores also stocked comics and became entertainment hubs, forming lasting memories for many children
The Comic Book kiosk was a draw for children who came to look and read, but seldom to buy.
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Such was the poverty of the residents that these places provided what little free entertainment was available, a memory shared by those who grew up in similar poverty across Hong Kong.
Harsh life in the City
A display showing the frontage of a Bone-setting Clinic gives poignancy to the harshness of life during these times.
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These clinics provided practical and affordable traditional Chinese treatment and medicine for injuries.
Tung Tau Tseun Road was known as Dentist Street because it supported over a hundred, mostly unlicensed, dental clinics, which continued to provide affordable dental services to people beyond the enclave and were among the businesses that thrived up to the final days of the Walled City
This type of care has a long history in Chinese culture, particularly in the rough and tough history of Hong Kong, when dangerous manual and factory labour dominated industry.
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Workers suffered harsh conditions during those times, with no protection or consideration for their occupational well-being.
Bone-setting clinics provided folk medicine for many factory workers and coolies who worked in harsh conditions and who sought affordable treatment for their injuries
Injuries were treated at their own expense, and bone-setting clinics were the go-to places for addressing pain and illness.
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Among the City’s most notorious aspects was its history as a semi-lawless squatter slum of criminal activity.
Items on display present the collective memories of a generations of people who came to Hong Kong
This tag, as a lawless haven, stemmed from the void left by the absence of law and order in the enclave.
The original site of the Walled City was a Chinese military fort. Even after China ceded Hong Kong to the British in 1841, it was maintained as part of China’s defences.
The enclave’s narrow alleys were full of small businesses such as tailor shops
However, in 1899, the British expelled all the Qing officials and soldiers, leaving the City empty of governance.
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In the 1950s, as immigrants converged into Hong Kong and squatters’ areas such as the Kowloon Walled City, the absence of official oversight led to criminal elements taking control.
Craftsmen earned their living with family-run operations such as this appliance repair shop
It was not until the 1970s that the Hong Kong police gained some jurisdiction inside the walls.
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Within the walls, residents were not registered, businesses were not licensed, no one paid taxes, and there were no schools for children.
Registration and taxpaying was not required in the City, which attracted hundreds of factories such this fish ball maker
In Room 3, the set of the Fish Ball Factory shows one of the hundreds of unlicensed and unhygienic food production facilities that proliferated.
Fish ball production was arduous and labour-intensive, yet it provided popular and inexpensive food. This set points to a key relationship forged in the movie
Factories such as plastic molding workshops thrived in the unlicensed environment of the City
The protagonist finds work at a fish ball factory in the City and meets a young girl who works there. They develop a connection and a shared sense of survival and comradeship.
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The dental display in Room 4 highlights that the City had over 150 unlicensed clinics in its heyday.
Dental clinic, though poorly equipped were often the only available option for many low-income patients
Tung Tau Tseun Road, along the exterior of the Kowloon Walled City, was known as Dentist Street.
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Authentic-looking but cringeworthy tools and equipment easily provoke goosebump reactions. However, these services were the only available treatment options for many of the poor from across Hong Kong.
Density in the City was extremely high; with some 20-30 alleys occupying 2.7 hectares with hundreds of through-routes between buildings and was a maze. The rooftops provided a spectacular view of low-flying planes on their deafening noisy approach to Kai Tai Airport
A video in Room 5 shows the formidable structure of Kowloon Walled City, with its rooftop of lights and shadows providing a real, first-hand view of the enormity of the place.
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Most striking was the emergence of a low-flying plane as it banked sharply and turned on its approach to Kai Tak Airport.
There was no official water supply in the City, residents had to resort to private water suppliers, and pumped water from underground
The deafening sound created a sense of what the City’s residents endured while they lived, worked and played in proximity to the old international airport.
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The Narrow Alleys and Hidden Streets displayed in Room 6 show the City dark yet vibrant with activity.
The alleys are cramped and claustrophobic with businesses. Residents earned their living in tailor shops, cobbler’s kiosks, appliance repair shops, and plastic moulding workshops.
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Most were family-run operations, living and working in these shops which ran day and night, striving against challenges to survive.
In Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, the protagonist lives discreetly in a barber shop, the space the source of income, also served as the base for the Walled City Peacekeeping Committee
The interior of a Barber Shop, in Room 7, provides the setting for the movie’s key character.
A martial arts master, he chooses to live and work discreetly in this barber shop, taking on responsibility and a role in enforcing peace and mediating disputes.
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The No. 7 Restaurant, in Room 8, is named after its owner, the movie’s character Double Blade, whose Chinese name means seven.
In Twilight of the Warriors: Walled in, No. 7 Restaurant is named after its owner Double Blade whose Chinese name means “seven”
The restaurant is a key setting for the movie’s unfolding story. The place provides an anchor for the story’s characters, as they use it as an eating and meeting place.
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The design includes iconic foods such as bowls of roasted pork rice with duck and chicken hanging in the front window.
Aroma of Roasted Pork Rice lingers at No.7 Restaurant, providing residents with the smell of a good meal waiting
The former site of Kowloon Walled City has been thoroughly transformed, tearing away the slum to make way for a beautiful green oasis.
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However, as the movie portrays, the site, where people relied on each other and created life-long friendships, deserves to be remembered.
The people who once lived and worked in the City contributed to the historic development of Hong Kong
These exhibits offer a brief glimpse of the Kowloon Walled City through the lens of a film, presenting a snapshot of the shared sense of survival, camaraderie, and the reasons for its enduring legacy.
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Both the Kowloon Walled City Park and this cinematic journey exhibition serve as a fitting memorial to this notorious labyrinth and an intriguing part of Hong Kong’s history, making them worthy of a visit.
Text and photos Cammy Yiu
