Yee dam hung seon

Oddly enough, then I hadn't heard about "City War" (aka "Yee dam hung seon") before now in 2021, as I had the chance to sit down to watch it. And with it being a Hong Kong movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I jumped at the chance to watch it.

And with it being watched now, I must admit that "City War" was a fairly typical movie in the Hong Kong action genre. Sure, if you are new to these movies, then "City War" will prove to be quite interesting. But if you are familiar with the genre and have seen more than your share of the movies, then chances are that you will find "City War" to be just another generic run-of-the-mill action movie that are found in great abundance in this period of the Hong Kong cinema.

For me, it was the somewhat stale storyline that was holding the movie back, because the action sequences in the movie were definitely good, and there was quite a bit of action throughout the course of the movie. But the storyline was just a bit too generic and mundane to properly entertain me. Now, don't get me wrong here, because "City War" is certainly a watchable movie, it just wasn't and outstanding movie.

The movie did have some good lead actors to portray the main characters, those being Yun-Fat Chow and Lung Ti.

Writers Lu Tung, Wai Ting Leung and Kai-Cheung Chung just seemed to put their money on the safe bet and go for something that everyone else was doing at that time in the Hong Kong action cinema. And that made for a somewhat mundane addition to the genre.

My rating of "City War" lands on a mediocre five out of ten stars. If you enjoy Yun-Fat Chow movies, then there are far better action movies with him in the lead role.

while not a great film, of the first round of 'new wave' action films to come out of Hong Kong in the later 1980s, this has been the most imitated - not the films of Woo and Lam.

Probably the main reason for this is that the characters wear their emotions on their sleeves. When it's time to have fun, they do nothing but have fun, when it's time to cry, they cry rivers. And of course, when it's time to fight, they go at it with a fury rarely seen in action films - which of course makes this a very good action film, since such fury is really what action film fans want to see.

This emotional openness invites over-acting, and there are certainly moments of that here, especially from the usually more guarded Chow Yun-Fat. On the other hand, this is a perfect venue for Ti Lung, who was trained in the more histrionic method expected of all Shaw Bros. stars of the '70s; and Ti Lung's performance really makes this film believable, despite some rather twists in the relationships presented here (such as the odd respect everyone pays to the aging triad boss).

It's a tough, dramatic story, and the gun-fight at the end is among the best in Hong Kong action cinema. Certainly not a classic like "The Killer" or "City on Fire", but you won't go wrong watching this, even a couple times.

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.

City War is yet another Hong Kong-action flick with friendship, vengeance and honor as the main-ingredients. Chow Yun-Fat and Ti-Lung makes this a good movie, and its worth seeing if you like these films. But I would also like to mention that there are other far better Hong Kong-movies available like The Killer, Hard-Boiled and the A Better Tomorrow-series (chapter one and two).

City War is just another action flick from Hong-Kong, but it is viewable because Chow Yun-Fat is in it. 7,5/10