Yee dam hung seon

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.

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.

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.

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

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.