Taking its lead from Gareth Evans’ The Raid, Dragon City will begin shooting in Hong Kong shortly, directed by Gallants helmer Derek Kwok . The movie is set in the 1970s and follows crack cop Donnie Yen and his team as they battle the criminal underworld inside the notorious Kowloon Walled City. (The now demolished Walled City, due to a loophole in Hong Kong law was outside the jurisdiction of the Police being counted as Mainland China territory despite being in the middle of Hong Kong and over 30,000 residents called it home while various illegal and gray area unlicensed businesses operated from within).
The city has featured in such films as Bloodsport, The Long Arm of the Law, and Jackie Chan’s Crime Story - where the film-makers actually blew up much of the abandoned city prior to its official destruction. It aso served as inspiration for the ‘narrows’ in Batman Begins, and featured in Ghost in the Shell.
Yen will be seen in Monkey King and in a cameo as Tony Leung’s take on Ip Man in Golden Chicken 3, released at Chinese New Year with the two part Iceman Cometh time-travelling adventure and in the dark thriller Last of The Best/Kung Fu Killer set to follow later in the year.
