Review | Kowloon Generic Romance movie review: Walled City-set Japanese fantasy makes zero sense

Riho Yoshioka, Koshi Mizukami and a Mandarin-speaking version of Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City star in this very odd production

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Koshi Mizukami (left) and Riho Yoshioka in a still from Kowloon Generic Romance (category: IIA, Japanese, Mandarin), directed by Chihiro Ikeda.

Published: 6:15pm, 9 Sep 2025

2/5 stars

The cluttered confines of Kowloon Walled City have recently been given a new lease of life.

The once notorious Hong Kong neighbourhood of dilapidated and densely populated residential buildings was demolished in 1994, but was resurrected on screen 30 years later in Soi Cheang Pou-soi’s 2024 box office hit Twilight of the Warriors: Walled in.

The martial arts action thriller delighted local audiences with its faithful recreation of the enclave, and the sets have since become a tourist attraction. They are currently exhibited in Kowloon Walled City Park at the site of the original neighbourhood.

This fabled hive of crime and destitution is now the setting for another film, albeit of a completely different nature.

Kowloon Generic Romance is a Japanese romantic fantasy from director Chihiro Ikeda. Nominally set in the present day, it stars Riho Yoshioka and Koshi Mizukami as Reiko and Hajime, a pair of fresh-faced Japanese property agents who live and work in an almost impossibly sanitised version of Kowloon Walled City.

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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Riho Yoshioka, Koshi Mizukami and a Mandarin-speaking version of Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City star in this very odd production

Riho Yoshioka, Koshi Mizukami and a Mandarin-speaking version of Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City star in this very odd production