‘Future’ Shock
For less than the price of a Mid-levels flat, Producer-actor Louis Koo and director Ng Yuen-fai have delivered Hong Kong’s first sci-fi epic.
Warriors of Future
Director: Ng Yuen-fai • Writers: Lau Ho-leung, Law Chi-leung, Mak Tin-shu
Starring: Louis Koo, Lau Ching-wan, Carina Lau, Nick Cheung, Philip Keung, Tse Kwan-ho, Wan Guopeng, Wu Qian
Hong Kong/China • 1hr 41mins
Opens Hong Kong August 25 • IIB
Grade: B
Whooooo. Well that was a long, hard road wasn’t it? Actor/producer/mini-mogul Louis Koo Tin-lok’s US$56 million – HK$440 million – labour of love has been gestating for, literally, years. We started hearing about it in 2015 when Koo allegedly proposed the idea, then the first time his One Cool production company shopped it at Filmart in 2018 – for a release in 2019. They missed that date when post-production ran longer than expected, totally unsurprising given something like 60% of the film, Warriors of Future | 明日戰記, is rendered in CG. We’re talking Marvel levels of CGI, and if we’re honest, considering Koo and his crew were working on a budget about 25% of The Avengers’ estimated US$220 million they did a way better job (looking at you, Black Widow). All for less than the price of a penthouse flat on Borrett Road!
Koo’s a lot of things – including very tanned, yes – but he’s not a director (at least not yet), so those duties fell to first timer Ng Yuen-fai, best known for founding visual effects studio Fatface in 2004, and then going on to win VFX awards for the Pang Brothers Re-Cycle in 2006, Peter Chan’s The Warlords in 2007, and the Pangs The Storm Warriors in 2009. Ng also won accolades for Bodyguards and Assassins and The White Storm (co-starring Koo), so his work here is kind of like Chad Stahelski making the jump from stunt performer to John Wick director. Or better, Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) going from VFX to the big chair. Eventually Ng worked from a script by Lau Ho-leung (Caught in Time, the heist film starring Daniel Wu’s mullet), Law Chi-leung (Viva Erotica, Full Throttle) and Mak Tin-shu (Trivisa), who tapped Predator, RoboCop, District 9, Starship Troopers, Iron Man and The Expanse (watch or read it, now) among other things for an instantly recognisable post-apocalyptic actioner. And you know what? It mostly works. Yes, Warriors of Future suffers the same shaky cam mania and distracting editing so many films of its ilk do, but that doesn’t make it any worse. It makes it absolutely of the standard we expect these days.
Not the Newt we meant
Warriors of Future is very, very grey. The action starts at an (aggressively) unnamed future in an unidentified city, decimated by environmental catastrophe and industrial recklessness. Most of the survivors of the what’s left of Earth live in domed safe zones, surrounded on all sides by what author Philip K Dick would have called slag. Our key players are BFFs Tyler (Koo) and Johnson Cheng (Lau Ching-wan), soldiers in some semblance of a defence force living in zone B16. You see, everyone has to contend with Pandora, an alien life form that swept the globe after a meteor strike years before. It’s deadly, but a side effect is its ability to purify the toxic air. When mad scientist Dr Cheng (Tse Kwan-ho) engineers a virus that will kill Pandora without stopping its purifying processes, Tyler and a squad that includes wet behind the ears Conor (Wan Guopeng) head into the belly of the beast to deliver the payload. They fail, and Johnson taps former squadmate Taron Yau, AKA Skunk (Philip Keung Hiu-man), for a rescue mission. This is Sunshine. This is Aliens. There’s a Burke. There’s a Newt.
There’s plenty to ponder in the blissfully message-free Warriors of Future. What’s up with Major General Lee’s (Nick Cheung Ka-fai) bronze countenance? What are these ghoulies living inside Pandora and why don’t we reference them again? Why doesn’t Conor’s girlfriend (Wu Qian) get fired for being so terrible at her job? Why doesn’t Conor get turfed from the service for being a terrible soldier? What happened to the title’s article? But there’s just as much that’s ace. Ng and his giant special effects team have opted for the Star Wars-style broken down vision of the future; everything’s rusty, dusty and creaky. There’s no sleekness in Lam Wai-kin and Alex Mok’s production design. Editors Curran Pang (Infernal Affairs, Chilli Laugh Story) and Wong Hoi (Cold War) keep shots short, a favourite trick of films hiding shoddy effects. Shame, though, as Warriors’ effects are far from shoddy. There’s an impressive dearth of crap compositing and nary a video game cut scene vibe to be seen, and the creature effects (more of these, please) hold up to any from Hollywood in the last decade. The rapid-fire editing unfortunately obscures the solid work by the VFX and art departments, particularly the ED-209 knock-off, which is the lynchpin in a brilliant white-knuckle highway chase. All deserve more clarity. Best of all, at under two hours it never wears out its welcome.
Rom-com, please
The future is grey
Koo, Lau and Keung, with his futuristic dreads (why does everyone sport locs in the future?) are fully committed to the story, less so Carina Lau Ka-ling as the colonel in charge of the virus mission – perhaps because she’s underwritten, and her sole purpose is to look stern before changing allegiances (the Angela Bassett role). But Koo and Lau, in their 15th (that comes to mind quickly) film together, bring their easy-going dynamic to Tyler and Johnson and make the silliness that much more palatable. Seriously, if Koo really wants to push the envelope he and Lau would make a rom-com.
Admit it. You snickered and scratched your head when the Arts Centre renamed its theatre the Louis Koo Cinema. And you know your expectations for Warriors of Future were unfairly low. But Koo deserves all credit for sticking his neck out and trying something relatively new, at least in Hong Kong. If the film tanks the worst that happens (okay, not the worst that can happen) is One Cool takes a tax write off (though it had earned half its budget in Chinese release by August 7). At best it kick-starts a modest CGI-driven cottage industry in line with global standards. Who’s laughing at the mini-mogul’s theatre now? — DEK
Not HK’s first Sci-fi rodeo
The Wicked City (1992) d: Peter Mak
This cult classic manga adaptation stars two of four Heavenly Kings hunting alien Rapters with opposing aims for Earth in pre-handover Hong Kong. Uh huh.
The Wesley’s Mysterious File (2002), d: Andrew Lau
Based on writer Ni Kuang’s series, Andy Lau is a UN alien investigator (!) uncovering a conspiracy, aided by FBI alien busters (!!) Shu Qi and Roy Cheung (!!!).
I Love Maria (1988) d: David Chung
Producer Tsui Hark’s fingerprints are all over this cops, robbers and Sally Yeh-shaped robot actioner. RoboCop on meth and peak ’80s HK nuttiness.