Ko Chow is an undercover cop who is under pressure from all sides. His boss, Inspector Lau, wants him to infiltrate a gang of ruthless jewel thieves; his girlfriend wants him to commit to marriage or she will leave Hong Kong with another lover; and he is being pursued by other cops who are unaware that he is a colleague. Chow would rather quit the force, feeling guilty about betraying gang members who have become his friends.
Lung fu fong wan, Cover Hard 2, Cover Hard II, Lung Fu Fong Wan, 龙虎风云, 용호풍운, Город в огне, Perigo Extremo, Płonące Miasto, เถื่อนตามดวง (City on Fire), City On Fire, Long Hổ Phong Vân
Hong Kong
USA
Germany18
Germany
Hong Kong
USA
From the wailing of Teddy Robin's sax to the blues and neon reds of a Hong Kong where all the jewelry stores are open 24 hours to Chow Yun-fat looking impossibly cool wearing two button-down shirts, one on top of the other, collar popped like a superstar, City on Fire is everything. A Better Tomorrow opened the door, but Ringo Lam codified the ethos and the aesthetic of heroic bloodshed, twisting Woo's tale of brotherly tragedy into wrenching, grotesque assaults on a degenerating state and social order in the interregnum between the Joint Declaration and the Handover. Lam is the most tactile director of his generation: his gunfights inflict horrifying physical consequences, not elegant ballets of bullets and bodies but…
1980’s Neon Hong Kong perfectly punctuated by a saxophone soundscape, intoxicating exploration of bloodshed brotherhood, and Chow Yun Fat completely captivating the screen like few others in crime have, City on Fire is brimming with style, and was one of the very first Hong Kong films I ever saw. In fact, I’d like to give that bootleg VHS street vender in NYC Chinatown circa 1997 a shoutout for hard selling me on this and in the process allowing me to open up a Lemarchand's box of hellishly captivating crime films for me to feast on.
Oh hey, I made it through the whole review without mentioned Quinten Tarantino.
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A Langian knot. What most fascinates me about City on Fire is how it works as anti Chow Yun Fat vehicle, there's nothing like it in his main period between A Better Tomorrow and Peace Hotel. He is never allowed to coast on his mr cool image or to overact,. he is never relaxed, but he sweats all the time, he keep looking at his back, he knows this unmerciful film won't give him a way out.
Action! - Johnnie/Ringo's Hong Kong Actions: Lam On Fire
New month, new marathon, and we head to Hong Kong to uncover two film characters that have managed to reverberate around the world thanks to their work in the action and thriller genres.
Nevertheless, we start off with Ringo Lam, a director who has become well-known in some sectors for his action pictures. By this point in his career, it is evident that he is a man who comes determined to give us these thrilling action movies with stuff happening from beginning to end, along with a decent amount of humor that feels genuine and never forced.
In addition, the film's great action sequences, whether they involve a firefight during a…
imagine being tarantino and thinking that you could improve upon this masterpiece
“I have to go fetch my wife in Hawaii.”
total anxiety. brief moments of connection interlaced with the relentless stress of being a cog in an apathetic machine. Chow is torn between the idea of love, the notions of responsibility and a brief genuine connection, and no matter what, more blood will spill and the system remains unchanged. a terrifying heartbreaking masterpiece and I’m so mad that Tarantino stole all the least interesting elements and neutered them down. I broke down in tears after this ended.
A brutal film, one that undercuts the pageantry of contemporary Hong Kong Heroic Bloodshed films for a nightmarish view of violence that, far from embracing nihilism, display potent humanity in its rejection of the hyper-stylized cool of crime. Chow Yun-fat has never looked more stressed in a movie, with his character torn between fears of discovery by the crooks with whom he's gone undercover, losing his girlfriend to his secretive and demanding job, and even having to face the prospects of betraying thieves he befriends. A saxophone breaks through the bustle of Hong Kong's dense streets, a keening mating call searching for a partner that never responds.
jesus what an ending. unfamiliar with the nuances of 1980s hong kong fashion so i'm not sure if he's supposed to look like a hipster or an idiot, but chow yun fat's outfits are absolutely out of this world!! nobody else who ever lived could make that dress shirt/bow tie/half-buttoned denim shirt/oversize jacket/corduroy pants/combat boots combo look that good
"Those who should die, don't; those who shouldn't, die early."
These words are spoken by Police Inspector Lau (Sun Yueh) in the context of the death of one of his undercover officers, and his words cast shades of noir across the rest of the film. Lau brings Ko Chow (Chow Yun-fat), another undercover cop, to the morgue, where he shows him the body of the dead officer, and right there, standing over his fresh corpse, he appoints Chow to the deceased man's newly vacant position.
A morbid fatalism hangs heavy over this position. After stumbling in a cemetery during a weapons deal with the gang of thieves he and Lau are trying to put away, Chow literally ends up with…
OK, I re-watched tonight as well but I did one thing I've never done before, I listened to the English dub...
Is that Clive Owen doing the voice of Chow Yun, as i surprised how "British" and bad this voice over is, it is like an episode of The Bill.
For a film possibly misremembered for its ending, a film which indirectly had a massive influence on the whole of 1990s US Indie cinema movement before Miramax homogenised all of it, a film which touchstones would be tropes in the HK action cinema genre for the next couple of years, you can forget how good this is.
The final 30 mins is a breath-taking rush of adrenaline, and Chow Yun Fat proves again what a once in a generation star he was. He also does does a decent Clive Owen impression in this as well.
A heroic bloodshed movie that provides just about everything you could ever want from one: Chow Yun-Fat at the top of his game, but also a perfect deconstruction of how fundamentally broken the law enforcement system is. But perhaps best known in the west for being the primary inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, the most evident similarities between the two are present in the film's final moments - though everything that leads up to those moments is incredibly tense, building off the relationships between officers and gangsters, creating a perfect mirror of one another.
And you also have a guy in the middle of it somewhere just wanting to play a saxophone. Now why Quentin Tarantino chose to leave that out is beyond me. On that note, cinema peaked at the chase scene set to "Joy to the World."
