Hong Kong action film “The Siege of Kowloon Walled City”, starring Hong Kong star Louis Koo, has broken the HK$100 million mark at the box office this week, with Taiwan box office surpassing NT$40 million. Starting from Friday (14th), a 4-minute “advance unlocking clip” will be released, teasing the upcoming prequel of the “Kowloon Walled City” series called “Dragon Head”.
“The Siege of Kowloon Walled City” has become the best-selling Hong Kong film in the first half of this year, successfully exceeding HK$100 million (about NT$390 million) at the Hong Kong box office this week. It firmly holds the second place in the box office history of Hong Kong films and shows great potential to climb to the top spot. Actors Louis Koo, Tony Liu, Raymond Lam, and Philip Ng happily attended ticket thanksgiving activities at movie theaters.
Being one of the film investors, Louis Koo expressed, “We really put in all efforts to promote the film, and it’s all thanks to the audience’s love and support that we achieved such great results. I hope we can reach even greater heights.”
“The Siege of Kowloon Walled City” has also performed impressively in Taiwan, surpassing NT$40 million at the box office, becoming the best-selling Hong Kong film in the first half of 2024. The box office in Taipei has also exceeded NT$10 million. This is the first time in 4 years, after the 2020 film “Shock Wave 2”, that a work from Hong Kong has surpassed NT$10 million at the Taipei box office.
The film distributors have released the “advance unlocking clip” in celebration of the box office success in Hong Kong, and Taiwan will also follow suit this week. After the full screening of the film on Friday (14th), the 4-minute unlocking clip will be added.
The story initially focuses on the boss played by Sammo Hung and the character Wang Jiu played by Philip Ng, triggering a bloody chaos through a short mahjong game. The film ends with the appearance of Leon Lai’s character, who is loyal to boss Ray Cheung, the influential person in Kowloon Walled City at that time, planting the seeds for the prequel “Dragon Head”.
Louis Koo also revealed the current production progress of “Dragon Head” in the interview. He mentioned that as the Kowloon Walled City set used for filming has been dismantled, it will require extra efforts to rebuild the set. Moreover, the scripts for “Dragon Head” and “Final Chapter” are still in progress. “We have only outlined the storyline so far, and the script is still being written. We need to gather the original cast for the production, scheduling everyone’s availability, so it’s hard to say when it will be completed, but we will do our best.”
Director Poon Pak-kwai also mentioned that there are no plans to release a new director’s cut. He stated, “I am very satisfied with the current version. If we force scenes back into the film that were deleted, the pacing of the entire work may be affected.”