I want to give this movie a higher rating for the historical aspect but the supervillain is just so ludicrous that he ruins the climax. From the moment his superpower is revealed, it starts going downhill because it becomes very apparent that in order to wrap up this story they're gonna have to come up with an utterly ridiculous solution to the ludicrous problem, and that's exactly what they did.
I enjoyed the majority of this but I feel like I just wasted two hours because the climax sucked.
Contrary to one of the other reviews here, I'm gonna say that the plot is not at all complex and certainly not so complex that an English speaker can't follow it. It's nothing we haven't seen before in an Asian crime thriller. The only bit that might blow your mind if you're not aware of your history is that Walled City was actually a real place that existed until 1994 and it looked a lot like what we see on screen.
I read this movie is based on a comic? That explains the ridiculous supervillain.
LET'S GET POLITICAL!
It goes to show how ridiculous and flaky people's political culture wars are when you're staring at a self-governing commune and can't even call it communism, or point out the woke brigade that beats the snot out of a man for beating a woman to death. It's apparently only "social commentary" when we're not talking about American slavery and feminism, although, all the women we see in this movie have jobs.
Walled City was torn down to build a park.
One article says, "Tens of thousands of residents and workers in the Walled City were relocated and laid off, some with enough compensation to restart their lives but most without." while another article says, "The compensation package for residents and business owners totaled $2.76 billion. On average, residents received around $380,000 for their individual flats. Negotiations progressed over several years, and by November 1991, only 457 households were still to agree terms. By that time, most of the 33,000 residents had moved out. Some, however, clung on to the end, and on July 2, 1992, riot police entered the city and forced out the last remaining residents. [...] On March 23, 1993, a wrecker’s ball smashed into the side of an eight-story tower block on the edge of the Walled City. [...] The moment was applauded by a crowd of invited guests and dignitaries. It was also greeted with shouts of anger from former residents who had gathered for one last, futile protest."
Most articles you'll read are sanitized and romanticized, though every one manages to refer to Walled City as a lawless crime den that foreigners were afraid of. If only foreigners were afraid of more places...