Sha chu Xiang Gang

After watching Hong Kong Godfather (another offering from director Lung Wei Wang), i was eager to watch another film from him and i decided to pick up City Warriors and give it a watch.

It wasn't exactly the film that i expected, but it was a fun ride, the action scenes are totally awesome (the first action scene is already one of my favorites), the stunts are spectacular (and dangerous looking) and the vehicular stunts are top notch. There is more gunplay than martial arts, but the action still manages to keep your eyes glued to the screen. The violence isn't gory as Hong Kong Godfather, but some of the violence is hard hitting enough to shock (or even offend) some of the audience.

If you don't expect a masterpiece, City Warriors manages to be an entertaining and fun movie.

Lung Wei Wang's CITY WARRIORS (1991) is an ultra violent cops versus gangsters/pimps film by the director of equally violent, but more sleazy ESCAPE FROM BROTHEL (1992). The plot in CITY WARRIORS is surprisingly easy to follow and understand and doesn't have too many turns and unclear happenings.

The film has a pretty impressive and talented cast. It includes the veteran Hong Kong actor Dick Wei who plays the lead role as the avenging brother from the mainland China. He is after his sister who turns out to be a prostitute in a very nasty Hong Kong brothel in which a thoroughly perverse transvestite is also "working" and beating the girls when they refuse to satisfy the customers' wishes. Jackie Chan's real life bodyguard (and the incredible fight machine at the end of Jackie's DRUNKEN MASTER 2, 1994) Ken Lo plays the role of the lead bad guy (as if Dick Wei's character wasn't "bad" by the end of the film!) who betrays and kills his way through to achieve his goal.

The film has some fierce action scenes and gun battles but they are nothing special in Hong Kong standards as their action choreographers like Ching Siu Tung can make things that make films like CITY WARRIORS look very tame in comparison. Still even the most modest efforts like this are more kinetic than most of the Western films.

The martial arts magic is pretty brief and so Ken Lo can't show his incredible talent too much in this film. The film concentrates on high level violence without any other meaning than itself. The film has some pretty brutal scenes and murders (especially the one involving the transvestite and two other people) and the finale is also as gratuitous as could expect, and is perhaps, in a way, even wilder than the finale in Aman Chang's BODY WEAPON (1999), which is, by the way, much better film, too.

CITY WARRIORS begins pretty promisingly but then becomes just another violent action film without any personality or deeper meaning and importance in it. I don't like this kind of films too much but I can only wonder how bad this would be if made in Hollywood, especially some 15 years ago!

CITY WARRIORS really isn't among the greats (or near them) of its country and I can't give it more than 2/10. If the viewer doesn't demand anything else than just violence and action, then the rating may well be higher, but things are not that way in my book.

A criminal ring, using mostly mainland Chinese prostitutes to serve rich and influential underworld figures, finds themselves in hot water when one of their girls dies from a rough, drug-fuelled sex session with a Yakuza boss. Her badly decomposed corpse is found in the sea triggering a police investigation led by O Chun-Hung. Meanwhile, Lok Han (Dick Wei) has come from China to Hong Kong, to find his sister, who has ties to the prostitute ring that's under investigation...

Man, does Johnny Wang Lung Wei know how to shoot tough and gritty action scenes! I love all of his directorial efforts (Widow Warriors and Hong Kong Godfather being my favourites) and revisited 'City Warriors' recently for the 3rd time.

Despite a fairly convoluted way of telling, what it essentially quite a simple story, the action , which is what most of us are here for, hits hard when it counts. The scene of a ferocious husband & wife gang shooting it out with the police is fantastic and up there with the best of what HK action cinema had to offer at the time. Shum Wai in drag as a sleazy, sadistic pimp is pretty entertaining and there are several solid scenes with Ken Lo, most notably when he scales an apartment block to carry out a hit.

Performances are generally respectable all round. Carina Lau is top-billed but the film mainly belongs to Dick Wei, Ken Lo and O Chun-Hung who are all on top form.