General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Call of Heroes (危城)

Call of Heroes (危城) is a 2016 Hong Kong action film directed, produced, and co-written by Benny Chan (陈木胜), set in the early Republic of China during the warlord era, in which a small town's guardian commander arrests the son of a powerful warlord for murder and must defend his decision against the warlord's army.¹^•² The film stars Sean Lau (刘青云), Louis Koo (古天乐), Eddie Peng (彭于晏), Wu Jing (吴京), Yuan Quan (袁泉), Jiang Shuying (江疏影), and Liu Kai Chi (廖启智), with action choreography by Sammo Hung.¹^•³

Key fact	Detail
Original title	危城 (Cantonese release; also known as Ngai Sing)¹^•⁴
Director	Benny Chan, who also produced and co-wrote the screenplay¹
Action director	Sammo Hung Kam-Bo³
Cast	Sean Lau, Louis Koo, Eddie Peng, Wu Jing, Yuan Quan, Jiang Shuying, Liu Kai Chi¹
Setting	Early Republic of China, during civil war and warlord fragmentation, in the remote town of Pucheng (普城)²
Mainland box office	167 million RMB (1.67亿元) in the 2016 summer season⁵
Hong Kong run	Released 18 August 2016, screened through 21 September 2016, grossing HK$10,205,410⁶
Critical ratings	89% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (9 reviews); 6.4/10 on IMDb⁷^•⁸

Spoilers

Plot

The story is set in the early years of the Republic of China, a period of incessant civil war in which the country was carved up by warlords.² In the remote town of Pucheng, public order is managed by a local guard corps (保卫团) led by commander Yang Kenan (Sean Lau), pending takeover by the forces of the new warlord Cao Ying.²^•⁹

Cao Ying's son, the young marshal Cao Shaolun (Louis Koo), arrives in the area and kills three people without cause. Yang arrests him and decides to execute him after a trial.²^•⁹ Zhang Yi (Wu Jing), a colonel under Cao Ying, comes to Pucheng to demand Shaolun's release. On the way he meets Ma Feng (Eddie Peng), a highly skilled wandering martial artist who trained under the same mentor, and who refuses to take Zhang's side after witnessing Shaolun's behavior.² Zhang fails to rescue Shaolun, and Cao's army invades Pucheng, causing numerous casualties.²

The townspeople, pressured by the warlord's power, urge Yang to release the prisoner and grow increasingly distrustful of him; Shaolun is eventually freed and takes revenge on Yang, plunging the town into looting and bloodshed. Ma Feng and the guard corps members then resolve to rescue Yang and fight for justice.⁹

Interpretation and style

A Hong Kong review argued that the film works on two levels: mainland censorship could read it as a disaster film about suffering under warlord rule, while Hong Kong audiences could read the besieged town of Pucheng as a stand-in for Hong Kong itself, a stable community whose guard corps keeps order while a larger predatory power closes in.¹⁴ The German-language review at Actionfreunde praised the performances of Eddie Peng as a self-interested drifter compared by other characters to the Monkey King of Chinese folklore and Lau Ching-Wan as a selfless law enforcer, with Louis Koo as a genuinely hateful villain, and noted the landscape panoramas around Pucheng shot with cinematographer Chor Keung Chan.⁴

Reported running times differ among distributors: 112 minutes (MM2 Entertainment), 118 minutes (GSC Movies), and 2 hours 0 minutes (Rotten Tomatoes).²^•¹^•⁷ The film was released for streaming on 8 November 2016.⁷

Production and personnel

Benny Chan (1961–2020) was a Hong Kong director, producer, and screenwriter who began in television at Rediffusion Television and then TVB, where he worked as a production assistant to Johnnie To, before making his film directorial debut with A Moment of Romance (1990). He established himself in contemporary action films with Big Bullet (1996), and his later credits include New Police Story (2004) and The White Storm (2013).¹⁰ Call of Heroes was produced by Bona Film Group, with Chan credited as director, producer, and screenwriter alongside Wai Ching Tam and Chun Wong.⁷

The fight scenes were choreographed by Sammo Hung, and reviewers noted the contrast between trained side performers and lead actors whose movements were assisted by editing and camera work.³^•¹¹

Reception

Critical response. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 89% Tomatometer from 9 professional reviews, with an audience Popcornmeter score of 65% from more than 100 ratings.⁷ Critics repeatedly framed it through the American Western. Clarence Tsui of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "Sergio Leone's specter looms large" over the film, comparing its nihilist violence to spaghetti Westerns that have long informed Hong Kong's wuxia (Chinese martial-arts hero genre) cinema; Andrew Heskins of easternKicks.com called it "a highly enjoyable wuxia take on Rio Bravo."⁷ The lovehkfilm review described it as "a rousing and uncomplicated throwback to Shaw Brothers-era martial arts actioners, with a simple story, righteous heroes, a diabolical villain and terrific action sequences."³ On IMDb it holds a weighted rating of 6.4/10 from about 2,800 user ratings, with an unweighted mean of 6.5.⁸

Box office. In mainland China the film earned 167 million RMB during the 2016 summer season, a season in which only one film, Warcraft, crossed 1 billion RMB.⁵ In its first week (15–21 August 2016) it ranked fourth on the mainland weekly chart with 67.15 million RMB, behind Line Walker and Time Raiders.¹² In Hong Kong it opened on 18 August 2016, ran through 21 September 2016, and grossed HK$10,205,410; a trade roundup noted that while its mainland gross only just passed 100 million RMB, in Hong Kong it approached the totals of the hit Line Walker.⁶^•¹³

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026