City on Fire

It took me a long time to finally get a hold of this film. it was worth the wait. Ringo lam is one of the most original directors out of hong kong. this is the finest work of his that i've seen. chow yun-fat worked very hard for the best actor award he got for this film. and danny lee ain't bad either. Ringo Lam's handling of the action is where this movie really shines. it is brutal in the fashion of an old Walter Hill or Peckenpah film, realistic and frightening. hong kong is displayed more accurately than i have ever seen in a movie, with its streets crowded till they appear ready to burst. in the final robbery sequence, the streets appear to be impenetrably thick. it is just a reminder that hong kong has more than four times the population density of new york city. many people have accused tarantino of ripping off this movie, and claim that reservior dogs is an exact copy. first of all tarantino gives credit to chow yun-fat as an influence at the start of the screenplay for reservior dogs. second of all the entire movie of reservior dogs is a expansion of a ten minute sequence near the end of the movie. and over here it is done totally different. so lay off of him mkay.

When an undercover officer is killed after being found out by a brutal gang, his inspector approaches ex-police officer Chow to renew his links and get himself into the gang. Chow supplies the gang with guns to prove he is `one of them', however as the job approaches, a special unit of the police begins to close in on the gang and put Chow at risk.

I didn't watch this film because it was the inspiration for Reservoir Dogs. No, I watched it because I'm a big Chow Yun Fat fan and I'm watching some of his films to get me in the mood for Bullet-Proof Monk. This film is a really good introduction to Hong Kong style, the focus is very much on the style without too much in the way of underlying currents and such. For information, Reservoir Dogs really only focuses on the final part of the film, whereas Longhu Fengyun covers longer story where we always know who the cop is. This takes away a little bit from the thrills but the film makes it up with style.

Everyone has cool sunglasses, the direction is slick and the action moves quite well. The final standoff is good but generally the film is quite exciting and moves along smoothly. Chow Yun Fat is a great star and here he shows why he is such a big star. He has emotional depth yet is comical and likeable, he is tough and an action star but yet he is not some distant muscle-bound hunk that is outside of reality. The rest of the cast are all good but it is difficult to judge performances when it is all subtitled (I find it hard anyway), however there are no weak links.

Overall this is a stylish thriller from Hong Kong. It is stylish but doesn't fall into the HK formula with slow-mo and such. Don't watch it because you're a Tarantino fan – watch it because it's a solid crime thriller in it's own right.

City On Fire is a fine HongKong-actionmovie about a cop, who goes undercover to arrest a bunch of criminals. Chow Yun-Fat plays the cop with his usual style and class. Director Ringo Lam has created an explosive actionmovie that inspired Tarantino to make "Reservoir Dogs". Good story, good action and good actors! 8,5/10

Chow yun fat made this movie for me. It's one of those movies that makes me see why Hollywood was kissing his butt for a while. He was very charming, funny, and dramatic. I saw some of this in the movies he had done for America, but never in this extended range.

This movie is centered around Chow yun fat who plays a cop whose in deep deep cover attempting to balance his real life relationship with his girlfriend with being toss in to deeper cover by his superiors to catch a criminal.

If this sounds like every Kung Fu film made in the 80's with an English dub, that's because it is, but unlike the police Drama Police Story in which Jacky Chan plays a man dedicated to his heroics to a fault, Chow yun Fat plays a man who wants out but his boss needs to keep him in as he's the only one who can capture the main villain. adding to this is the fact that it's not clear to some in the police department whose side he's on, which adds to the drama.

The movie also expresses some of the gun fu violence that chow yun fat became famous for, but not on the level as some of his others like Hard boiled or A Better Tomorrow, but it's there.

I would recommend everyone see this police drama and let chow yun fat prove to you what a great leading man he was at his peak.

I'm gonna try to keep my comments relatively brief, this is a huge point I'm trying to come across with) and direct them at the issue of Quentin Tarantino's (with Avary) Reservoir Dogs, not at my opinion that City on Fire stands as great film of noteable orginality.

This is about a relationship which exists, between two films by different directors from different backgrounds, solely because Tarantino 'borrowed' ideas from Ringo Lam.

After seeing Reservoir Dogs for the first time many years ago, I was blown away. You have to give it to Tarantino, he was in the right place at the right time and Reservoir Dogs blew everything that was going on in American cinema, at the time, out of the water. There is no denying that through film enthusiasts who saw Pulp Fiction and then later sought out Dogs, that a whole new generation of directors and writers came out of the wood work, inspired by his work and tried to imitate what they came to praise as an icon of cinematic originality in what would be come a pop culture of new wave gangster films.

However, that is where, in my opinion, praise of Tarantino should stop. Sometimes I think people get confused between two things. Those two things are being a obsessive film enthusiast and being an original artist. I think that one problem, in my opinion (although many may not agree), with the general film watching public and many producers, is that they have not been exposed to much of foreign cinema, let alone most of the independent films which gain huge followings but go unnoticed by the general public, and therefore someone who markets an idea properly, be it original or not, can get away with taking someone else's idea which was truly original, but not immensly popular, and turning that into success, or even in some cases, a cult film. The latter evokes some laughter on my part, because having a cult film being based on the original work of another cult film, really says something about the audience who follows such an unoriginal film without trying to truly discover its roots.

Now, does this take anything away from Reservoir Dogs or City on Fire for that matter? No. I believe that generally most who will see either film will, and should for that matter, go on to enjoy both films to the extent that they are impressioned by them for their originality and substance without caring about these 'minor details'.

However, after seeing both films and actually taking them for their worth, I believe that it is clear in what classes, either enthusiast or artist, to put Lam and Tarantino in.