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Hong Kong’s dream of creating Kowloon Walled City exhibit from hit movie dashed after source reveals sets were destroyed

  • Government ‘dropped a brick’ when it announced it was discussing plans to preserve HK$50-million sets of Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, insider says
  • Those sets had already been destroyed after filming, so turning them into public exhibits to attract visitors is ‘wishful thinking’

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Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In has grossed more than HK$70 million in Hong Kong and Macau since its release in both cities on May 1. Photo: Entertaining Power Co
Cannix Yau
Hong Kong’s dream of using the sets of a hit martial arts film featuring the Kowloon Walled City as exhibits are all but that – a dream – as those sets were destroyed, making their restoration impossible, the Post has learned.
A source close to the filmmakers said in an interview the government had “dropped a brick” when it said it was talking to producers about preserving parts of the HK$50-million (US$6.4 million) sets of Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In so they could be turned into exhibits to attract visitors to the city.

“This is entirely wishful thinking on the part of the government,” the insider said. “The sets were totally destroyed after the film was completed because it is very expensive to rent a place to retain them.

“The government misunderstood the existing situation and thought they could still preserve the sets when in fact that is impossible now.”

The insider said the government mistook the earlier remarks of actor and investor Louis Koo Tin-lok about “hopes” to use the sets for exhibition, when Koo was in fact referring to new sets that would have to be built from scratch if a second instalment of the film was made.

“The government thought retaining the sets [from the first film] was still possible so it claimed to be in discussions about it, while the movie company didn’t want to upset the government so didn’t publicly reject this possibility,” the source explained.

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