---
title: "Limbo"
year: 2021
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/limbo"
fi1m_id: "limbo"
imdb_id: "tt14032696"
tmdb_id: 591222
wikidata_id: "Q43746246"
fi1m_score: 66
critics_reviews: 3
published: "2026-09-30T21:26:57.911431+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-30T21:27:02.280473+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Limbo (2021)

Directed by Soi Cheang · 1h 58m · Thriller, Crime, Drama, Action

## Identity

Limbo

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/limbo
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** limbo
- **IMDb ID:** tt14032696
- **TMDB ID:** 591222
- **Wikidata ID:** Q43746246
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14032696/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/591222, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q43746246

**Fi1m score: 66** · Critics: 3 of 6 reviews so far

*In a sentence:* A city built entirely of rubbish, a killer who collects hands, and a heroine the film cannot stop hitting

> Soi Cheang’s black-and-white thriller builds a Hong Kong out of landfill and photographs it with great care; the craft is not in question. What it does to Cya Liu’s Wong To for two hours is, and we left impressed and uneasy.

## Synopsis

Hong Kong, the present day. Detective Cham Lau (Gordon Lam) works the back streets where the city dumps what it no longer wants: alleys of plastic bags, shanties built on scaffolding, black water underfoot. He is given a new partner, Will Ren (Mason Lee), a university graduate who has read the manual and not yet had to throw it away. Their case is a string of killings; someone is taking women and leaving traces of them in the rubbish heaps. Wong To (Cya Liu), a young woman living on the edges of the small-time gangs who run these streets, is pulled into the hunt, and Cham has reasons of his own for wanting her where he can see her. The alleys the police are searching are ones she knows well.

## Review

Soi Cheang’s *Limbo* is a serial killer film set in a Hong Kong made almost entirely of rubbish. Cheng Siu-Keung shoots it in black and white, so the alleys are pale heaps and black water, and the sky, when it appears at all, is a strip of grey between buildings. Somebody is cutting the left hands off women and leaving them in the heaps, and two detectives, one old and one new, go looking. It is superbly made, and for long stretches we did not like it, and both of those things are true at once.

Gordon Lam plays Cham Lau heavy and unshaven, a man who hits first and asks nothing afterwards. Mason Lee’s Will Ren is the graduate who has read the manual, and Lee spends the film wincing at his tooth and at his partner in roughly equal measure; he is the conscience of the piece, and the piece is not much interested in conscience. Cya Liu’s Wong To is the reason to watch. She plays a woman who has decided she deserves whatever is coming, and Liu lets us see, in small movements of the mouth, the moment she starts to disagree with herself. She spends most of the film running, and she runs like someone who has done it before.

The city is Kenneth Mak’s, and it is a considerable piece of work. Shanties are built from scaffolding and bin bags. Mannequins lie in the drifts of plastic with their limbs at wrong angles, so that every heap might have a body in it. Cheng lights the daytime hard and white and the nights with single bulbs, and it rains, at length, on everything. David M. Richardson cuts the fights fast without losing us; when Cham chases a man up a stairwell we know where both of them are on every landing. Kenji Kawai’s score stays low and spare and mostly out of the way, which is the right decision in a film this loud on its own. Bruce Yu keeps Cham in one shirt that gets steadily wetter, and Wong To in layers she has plainly slept in.

The first hour had us gripped. The discovery of the first hand, a small pale thing in a mountain of grey, and the slow business of working out how large this city of waste actually is, are done with patience and confidence, and we sat forward. There is a moment when the two detectives climb to a rooftop and the camera shows us what they are looking down on, and we felt the scale of the job before either of them said a word.

Then the script, by Au Kin-Yee and Shum Kwan-Sin, shows its hand. Whatever else it is doing, its plan for Wong To is that she suffer, at length and on camera, and that we watch. Somewhere in the middle there is a stretch where she is knocked down, chased across the dump, dragged and knocked down again, and it goes on, and at a certain point we stopped being frightened for her and started being tired of watching, and then angry that the film appeared to think our tiredness was the point. The reviews so far are split on exactly this, and we do not think the split is unreasonable.

Hiroyuki Ikeuchi has a role we will not describe. Sammy Sum Chun-Hin’s Boss Spark and Fish Liew Chi-Yu’s Coco fill out the underworld Wong To is trying to leave, and both are good in the little they are given. Hanna Chan, as Will’s wife, exists to be worried about.

Cheang made *Dog Bite Dog* (2006), another film about a man living like an animal in the city’s leavings, and *Limbo* is that idea with far more control and far more money on the screen. He has always been better at rooms than at people, and here the rooms are the whole of Hong Kong. The killer’s motive, when it arrives, is thin, and the film knows it, and hurries past.

See it in a cinema if you can, where the blacks have weight and the rain looks like rain and the 118 minutes feel like a place rather than a length. Bring nobody who has had a bad week.

*Fi1m score 66, published 30 September 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is Limbo worth watching?**

*Limbo* is worth watching for anyone who can stomach a serial killer thriller that spends much of its second half beating its heroine, and we scored it 66. Soi Cheang's black-and-white Hong Kong of landfill is superbly built and photographed, and Cya Liu is the reason to watch. We left impressed and uneasy, and we would not take it lightly.

**How long is Limbo, and what is it rated?**

*Limbo* runs 1h 58m. It is a thriller and crime film.

**Where can I watch Limbo in the US?**

*Limbo* is streaming on Tubi in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $2.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is Limbo, and is it suitable for children?**

*Limbo* is a violent, adult serial killer film with no certificate in the UK or US, and it is not suitable for children. Someone is cutting the left hands off women, and the heroine, Wong To, is knocked down, chased and dragged across a rubbish dump at length in the middle stretch; we grew tired of watching it. The squeamish should stay away.

**How does Limbo compare to Memories of Murder?**

[*Memories of Murder*](https://film.one/film/memories-of-murder) is the better film, and the surer one; *Limbo* has the more remarkable setting. Both follow detectives hunting a serial killer through rain, but Bong Joon Ho's film is funny before it is anything else and keeps a firm moral footing, while Cheang's is louder, faster and far harder on its heroine. Start with Bong; come to Cheang for the city built of rubbish.

**What should I watch after Limbo?**

After *Limbo*, try [*Memories of Murder*](https://film.one/film/memories-of-murder) (2003, Fi1m 91): Korean detectives, a serial killer, rain, and a far surer moral footing. Then [*Se7en*](https://film.one/film/se7en) (1995, Fi1m 88): The rain-soaked procedural this owes its shape to, with a better ending; and [*Infernal Affairs*](https://film.one/film/infernal-affairs) (2002, Fi1m 87): Hong Kong police at their slickest; the clean version of this city.

### Reviews we read (3)

- **Film Comment**, Ryan Swen (70/100, inferred): The piece presents Limbo as part of a pair that demonstrates Soi Cheang’s distinctive blend of existential bleakness and technical wizardry. It singles out that combination as a strength of his cinema. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/double-impact-soi-cheangs-limbo-and-mad-fate/)
- **Screen Daily**, Lee Marshall (68/100, inferred): Marshall frames the film as a tough piece of Cantonese noir. The standfirst singles out its noir character, while the paywall hides further detail. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/limbo-berlin-review/5157682.article)
- **Variety**, Jessica Kiang (28/100, inferred): Kiang finds the film an ultimately dubious, exploitative cop thriller that relies on misogynistic violence. She praises its slick black-and-white cinematography and well-mounted action, but says they cannot redeem its treatment of women. [Read](https://variety.com/2021/film/reviews/limbo-review-1234920597/)

## Details

- **Director:** Soi Cheang
- **Director:** Soi Cheang
- **Screenplay:** Shum Kwan-Sin, Au Kin-Yee
- **Cinematography:** Cheng Siu-Keung
- **Editor:** David M. Richardson
- **Music:** Kenji Kawai
- **Production design:** Kenneth Mak
- **Costume design:** Bruce Yu
- **Producer:** Paco Wong Pak-Go, Wilson Yip, Stanley Tong Man-Hong
- **Cast:** Gordon Lam as Cham Lau; Cya Liu as Wong To; Mason Lee as Will Ren; Hiroyuki Ikeuchi as Akira Yamada; Sammy Sum Chun-Hin as Boss Spark; Fish Liew Chi-Yu as Coco; Hanna Chan as Will's wife; Lam Hoi-yan
- **Runtime:** 1h 58m
- **First release (Germany):** 3 March 2021
- **Genres:** Thriller, Crime, Drama, Action
- **Budget:** $16 million

## Where to watch in the US

- Tubi: free, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $2.99, sd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, sd

*Checked 2026-09-30.*

Also available in: AT, CA, CH, HK, IT, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Dog Bite Dog* (2006): Cheang’s earlier, rawer film about a man hunted through the same filth
- *Memories of Murder* (2003), Fi1m 91: Korean detectives, a serial killer, rain, and a far surer moral footing — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/memories-of-murder.md)
- *Se7en* (1995), Fi1m 88: The rain-soaked procedural this owes its shape to, with a better ending — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/se7en.md)
- *Infernal Affairs* (2002), Fi1m 87: Hong Kong police at their slickest; the clean version of this city — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/infernal-affairs.md)
- *The Wailing* (2016): A rural Korean investigation that also lets the dread soak into the landscape

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/limbo