Yee dam hung seon

Oddly paced and strikingly shot, City War could have been a stone-cold classic of Hong Kong's vastly impressive line-up of heroic bloodshed actioners, unfortunately, it has to make do with writing that's painfully formulaic, extremely uneven and occasionally mindless. Yet, it's not all bad. The first two-thirds of the film takes on the form of a joyful romantic comedy, dominated by the happy-go-lucky presence of Chow Yun-fat's character. Then suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, the last third hits, and we are plunged into an abyss of gritty drama, graphic violence, tragedy and death. The massive tonal shift really upsets the film's balance but largely gets carried through the weaker moments thanks to the chemistry of Chow Yun-fat and Ti Lung being onscreen together again. It's all slickly directed by, Shaw Brothers graduate, Sun Chung with a bold use of colour while Michael Lai's score is suitably epic. Mashing together the stylings of Miami Vice with the Hong Kong criminal underground, City War isn't a classic by any means, it is a fully entertaining slice of 80s action and more than worthy of watching at least watch.

Chow Yun-Fat and Ti Lung are a good team, and any film with these two actors in it has an automatic quality quotient. Without these two, City War would have been just another violent, blood-spattered look at the never ending-battle between good and evil as played out in the streets of Hong Kong.

Ti Lung plays Ken, a 20-year veteran cop with a temper who ten years ago shot not to kill but to capture a criminal named Ted (played with an astounding amount of malevolence by Norman Chu); Chow Yun-Fat as Dick Lee is a younger cop, a crack shot and skilled mediator who, though ten years less on the force, is his buddy's superior officer. When Ted gets out of prison the first thing he does (after an unsuccessful quasi-rape of his girlfriend) is go looking for the guy who sent him to prison. Hiring some Mainland baddies to do the dirty work, he plots his revenge but things go wrong and only Ken's wife and daughter are killed and his son seriously wounded.

Because of the way things happened leading to his son's injury, Ken blames his friend Dick for the mishap; Dick, in order to redeem himself in Ken's eyes, goes on a murderous rampage which sees bodies flying left and right.

The chemistry between Chow Yun-Fat and Ti Lung makes this film worth watching at least once. The final scenes in the bus terminal are violent enough for any HK action fan. For those sensitive to such things, there's a fair amount of violence involving women being beaten and shot and there is violence done to children in the storyline.

The character of Dick Lee is interesting, and there is a very erotic scene between Dick and his flame-of-the-moment in a discotheque. The real emotion though is reserved for the "until death do us part" relationship between Dick and Ken.

Rent it for the performances of the two leads. Just to see these two greats performing together is worth the time and money spent.

A movie containing Chow Yan Fat en Ti lung cannot go wrong and it doesn't. The chemistry between them is wonderful. You will laugh with them and cry with them. This movie is more about their friendship. For fans who expect a movie like "A Better Tomorrow", do not worry because the exploding finale makes the movie worth watching. Forget about the plot,their is none.But the interactions between Chow Yan Fat and Ti Lung compensate that. Also there is not much style except for the action scenes. They are done superbly. Very surprisingly there is also a lot of humor and romance ,which shows the talent of Chow yan Fat. This movie can be described as an average heroic bloodshed title.

City War is a gritty, grim and hard hitting melodramatic action movie .Chow Yun Fat and Ti Lung team up again (this was released one year after A Better Tomorrow 2) for some more heroic bloodshed . Even though our protagonists are cops , I do consider this a heroic bloodshed film. Ti Lung is a tough , bad tempered cop named Kerosine Ken. Ken put away triad baddie Ted Yiue( played most vicious by Norman Chu) and now that he is out of prison is looking for revenge.CYF plays Ken 's buddy is a smooth talking hostage negotiator and ladies man.There is a little comedy early on but disappears as the film builds to its violent, nihilistic climax.As things rapidly go to hell CYF and Ti Lung go all out for revenge.Director Sun Chun did a fine job on this film . While in the same vein as John Woo's films, City War is much darker, gritty and gloomy in tone and style .With the incredible talent and chemistry of CYF and Ti Lung , City War really holds up well as an awesome work of heroic bloodshed.

The second to last film of Shaw director Sun Chung's career reunites him with his long time best actor Ti Lung. It's also Chung's only effort to work in the new style action cinema of late 1980's Hong Kong.

The film has many of the hallmarks of HK cinema of the late 1980's and early 1990's, frenetic action, over the top near hysterical acting, stunt men being throw over all sorts of hard objects, extreme pessimism with the system and a feeling that chaos and crime is just around the corner. Distrust of Mainland China is a repeated theme as the HK criminals smuggle in assassins from there. While the character of "Dick", played by Chow Yun Fat, behaves like a clown at times and many of the early scenes reflect that, the film is really about as downbeat as one can get. If the citizens of Hong Kong really felt that the system was as bad as portrayed here, it a wonder anyone stayed there before China took over.

As a film it certainly has the solid and stylish direction that Sun Chung put into all his work even with the lower budget he clearly had to work with here. The action scenes are generally well done, better than other films of the time, but the plot leaves a bit to be desired. A fascinating husband and wife assassination team is introduced at the beginning of the film only to be seen going back to China by train in the middle, never to return. Why bother introducing them at all if the heroes are never going to battle them?

Not bad if you like this genre, the actors are great, and the film isn't too long.