“Warriors of Future” Theatrical Poster
Director: Ng Yuen-Fai
Cast: Louis Koo, Lau Ching Wan, Carina Lau, Nick Cheung, Philip Leung, Tse Kwan-ho, Janice Wu, Eddy Ko Hung, Sakurako Okubo, Wan Guopeng
Running Time: 99 min.
By Paul Bramhall
It may sound optimistic, but I’d like to think that years from now, fans of Hong Kong cinema will look back and say 2022 way the year the territory once more found its voice. The likes of Table for Six, Mama’s Affair, and Chilli Laugh Story have all brought in healthy box office returns amongst HK audiences, with the focus on more intimate, locally focused tales proving to be a winning recipe. However, standing tall over all these productions is a movie which couldn’t be more opposite in tone, scale, or any other form of cinematic measurement, because 2022 was also the year that finally saw Louis Koo’s long gesticulating passion project Warriors of Future hit the big screen (and for the rest of the world, Netflix).
With a filming schedule that began in 2017, and what felt like more teaser trailers and posters being released over the following 5 years than you could shake a stick at, currently only Juno Mak’s Sons of the Neon Night can hold a candle to how long audiences have had to wait for the finished product to arrive. Koo’s passion for the Hong Kong film industry and nurturing new talents within it is well known, and it was well reported that a goal of Warriors of Future was to prove Hong Kong could produce big budget blockbusters capable of competing with Hollywood.
Before even discussing the movie itself though, Koo’s persistence must be admired. While I’ve no doubt if he made the decision to film Warriors of Future in Mandarin and have the characters be a part of China’s military, the funding floodgates would have opened in the blink of an eye, but he unwaveringly decided to keep things local. So while the Mainland has cranked out its own sci-fi flicks over the last 5 years with the likes of Bleeding Steel, Shanghai Fortress, and The Wandering Earth, the good news is Warriors of Future comes with no such Mainland Melody undertones (and let’s be honest, for long time fans of HK cinema, doesn’t that grammatically challenged title already warm the heart a little?).
Not that Hong Kong cinema has a particularly strong pedigree in the sci-fi department, with Koo’s own previous appearance in the genre involving his interactions with a gigantic alien cat in 2017’s Meow. With company like Future X-Cops and City Under Siege, opting for a slice of sci-fi action may seem like a risky proposition, however it’s one that Koo has banked the best part of 10 years of his life on if you include pre-production. Thankfully the plot for Warriors of Future doesn’t involve any alien cats or inflatable Aaron Kwok’s, instead opting for the tried and tested formula of an alien threat that’s going to destroy everything in its path if not stopped by a heroic military unit (re: Louis Koo).
In the not-too-distant future the Earth has been ravaged by war thanks to the advancement of technology meaning battles are now fought with robots rather than humans. This should be a positive, but human nature being what it is, the ease of using technology to fight has actually made countries more willing to go to war than ever before. All this war has seen climate change go off the charts, so most cities now live under a ‘Skynet’, basically a large dome that keeps the air breathable and pollutants out. Hong Kong is one such city, however things go awry when a gigantic alien meteor crashes in the local vicinity, unleashing a gigantic alien plant called Pandora that destroys everything in its path, and only grows bigger when it reacts to water. That makes for bad news whenever the weather forecast is rain.
Luckily for the population living in Pandora’s path, scientists have figured out that its destructive ways could be modified and used for the greater good. If only there was a way to drop a ‘gene bullet’ that the scientists have developed into Pandora’s pistil (this already feels like the most ludicrous sentence I’ve ever written), then it could be re-engineered to produce hydrogen and make the air breathable again. With an epic storm brewing that would bring so much rainfall the damage Pandora would inflict is unthinkable, it’s decided by the miliary brass that it’s now or never to go on a pistil hunting mission and release the gene bullet, and it all needs to be done before anyone needs to use an umbrella. Enter Louis Koo as the brooding military man capable of pulling off such a dangerous mission, and Lau Ching-wan as his comrade in arms, who together (with some nondescript supporting characters) will make HK liveable again!
While that sounds like a lot of plot on paper, onscreen it can basically be summarised as “we need to find this alien pistil and detonate the gene bomb in it.” Indeed Louis Koo may be the driving force behind Warriors of Future, but he’s not the one in the director’s seat, with visual effects artist Ng Yuen-Fai making his directorial debut. How much enjoyment audiences will get from Yuen-Fai’s direction with likely depend on how much value is placed on aspects of filmmaking like characterisation, as the 100-minute runtime very much plays out like there’s a special fx guy at the helm. Any exposition is only there to do the bare minimum of getting from one action scene to the next, and characters are barely even one-dimensional, given the thinnest of motivations and back stories to constitute their existence.
Despite this, it’s still not enough for Nick Cheung’s (The Trough, Bodies at Rest) villainous commander who created Skynet. Wheelchair bound and armed with a number of lines that can be counted on 2 hands, the usually lively Cheung puts in a Steven Seagal-esque performance (ok maybe that’s a little unfair, since the wheelchair obviously means he’s seated the whole time) devoid of any emotion or effort. It almost feels like parts of his performance are likely on the cutting room floor, as he does little during his time onscreen other than stare blankly into the distance and offer the occasional smirk.
Of course Warriors of Future is ultimately there to show off its special effects, and to that end it delivers with aplomb. Any production like this is going to be an easy target, however for the most part the effects work is solid, and more importantly, delivers the intended thrills. It almost feels like the effects team worked chronologically, as some initial shots are less than convincing (for example the crafts landing behind Koo and Ching-wan in one of the initial scenes fail to look like part of their surroundings), however once it gets to the action scenes the quality increases dramatically. An airborne chase sequence where Koo and co. follow a chemical trail through Pandora’s vines to locate its pistil offers up the first of several set pieces, and fully exploits its B-movie premise of them having to fend off a gigantic killer plant to entertaining effect.
Jack Wong (Limbo, Coffin Homes) is on action choreography duty, a veteran of more than 25 years who, similar to Yuen Bun, has also been able to successfully adapt his skillset to incorporate modern technology into his action direction. Here he still gets the chance to flex his fight choreography skills, when the suited-up soldiers are forced to face off against killer robots involving a mix of blades, axes, and anything else they can get their hands on. While it could be argued that none of what’s onscreen is particularly ground-breaking, it’s also never anything less than entertaining, and the breathless action bombardment that assaults the screen for most of the runtime does a good job of preventing the viewer dwelling on any plot holes.
Does Warriors of Future succeed in its goal of showing Hong Kong can make big budget sci-fi blockbusters with the best of them? I’d say it does. It may come at the expense of things like characterisation and logic, which could be a dealbreaker for some (ok, for many), however for this HK cinema fan at least, such flaws are forgivable. What can’t be denied is that under that big budget sci-fi sheen, Warriors of Future feels like a Hong Kong action movie through and through, from the shameless sentimentality to the themes of brotherhood. Hollywood style? Sure, but a Hong Kong heart, and for that, Koo and the team should be applauded.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6.5/10
