rettercritical This is a no frills undercover cop story directed by Ringo Lam. With an average budget the film tells its story quite tightly with fine performances. Chow Yun Fat stars as the undercover policeman who is also having relationship problems. Danny Lee pops up as the jewel thief who will basically befriend chow as the system pushes them closer together. Yueh Sun Stars as an older cop who has lost his son years ago in the force and is bending the rules to have Chow undercover.I think Ringo Lam takes inspiration as much from French New Wave cinema as he douse from Hong Kong. The simple shooting style, at times like documentary, captures whats he needs and he is just concerned with making it all happen for the camera with settings and performances that ring true for the lens. Films like Un Flic and Le Samorai from French director Jean Piere Melville may have been the inspiration for Lam's raw, simple style. This approach is effective.We all know what film it ended up inspiring and Ringo Lams comparisons with his contemporary John Woo, Rather than ad to the subject dominance of the former I will just comment on the latter in That Woo only made one film better than this and it was The KIller. Despite Woo's amazing and influential style he doesn't tell perfect stories. City On Fire has a story that keeps you interested in what will actually happen. The dramatics of this picture are excellent. The performances all good. The characters are all concerned about their own situations and feel them all. The film is occasionally quite funny. Chow has a bit of a gift for comedy that transcends language and cultural barriers. This film and Lam's other film starring Chow, Prison On Fire, always amuse me in their moments.I was taken by this film. I cared about Chow and his vice like position. His impatient girlfriend, complicated job, going undercover and being followed by another police unit as if a criminal are situations closing in on him. Chow Yun Fat is a wonderful actor to watch. He can make you laph with his dances, wooing woman and can entrance you with his glare when he means business. There are some wonderful long takes in this film that lets chow bring you into his character. In his roles of cops and killers he makes you sympathetic. A gift to the genre.Ringo Lam brings many of his regulars together to make a class production. You will recognise some of the cast if you have seen his other films. I figure he didn't have the permission to shoot on some of the locations and it informs the shooting style, undercover in itself. Cameras lens poking out the window of a moving car to shoot the characters on the street. He just gets this film made. He has a pretty decisive vision. I have read you have to be tough directing films in Hong Kong. The schedules are busy, the budgets are low and the Authorities are strict. You have to be able to improvise and break the rules. Take risks like they do with stunt-work.The script is way above average for a Hong Kong cop drama. This is a character driven film with less emphasis on action. A solid 80's picture. One of my favorite films from Hong Kong.

CitizenCaine Chow Yun-Fat stars in one of Hong Kong Director Ringo Lam's earlier action films: City On Fire. He plays a police detective persuaded by his superiors to go undercover one more time before he leaves the force. In so doing, he has his uncle (his superior) to deal with, as well as the regular police, who are moving in on the gang Chow infiltrates simultaneously. He also contends with a girlfriend, in a forgettable subplot, who wants him to make up his mind about marrying her. The characters are short on development, but Chow Yun-Fat impresses as the man that wants to leave police work, only to face conflicting loyalties between his job and the gang he infiltrates; he carries the whole film. Danny Lee, as Fu, is the gang member Chow befriends within the gang. The rest of the gang members do not stand out, nor does the girl that plays Chow's girlfriend. The film is stylish with violent action and excellent gun play characteristic of Hong Kong action films, accompanied by a pulsating musical score that accentuates the action. The film takes a while to get the plot moving, but once it does, it clicks. The last half hour is especially outstanding, as action, cinematography, music, and style converge in an abandoned warehouse. This is the famous scene that inspired Quentin Tarantino to make Reservoir Dogs. **1/2 of 4 stars.

smiths-4 I viewed this on late night TV and it immediately grabbed me. It was due to its interesting music, shoot outs, superior cinematography and a brilliant performance by Chow-Yun Fat as the undercover agent sent to join a gang headed by the excellent Danny Lee. Only the ending bears comparison to Reservoir Dogs with the rest of the film building up to this moment. In it's own right this is as good as Tarantino's effort and should be seen by as many people.

b00st I'm gonna try to keep my comments relatively brief, this is a huge point I'm trying to come across with) and direct them at the issue of Quentin Tarantino's (with Avary) Reservoir Dogs, not at my opinion that City on Fire stands as great film of noteable orginality.This is about a relationship which exists, between two films by different directors from different backgrounds, solely because Tarantino 'borrowed' ideas from Ringo Lam.After seeing Reservoir Dogs for the first time many years ago, I was blown away. You have to give it to Tarantino, he was in the right place at the right time and Reservoir Dogs blew everything that was going on in American cinema, at the time, out of the water. There is no denying that through film enthusiasts who saw Pulp Fiction and then later sought out Dogs, that a whole new generation of directors and writers came out of the wood work, inspired by his work and tried to imitate what they came to praise as an icon of cinematic originality in what would be come a pop culture of new wave gangster films.However, that is where, in my opinion, praise of Tarantino should stop. Sometimes I think people get confused between two things. Those two things are being a obsessive film enthusiast and being an original artist. I think that one problem, in my opinion (although many may not agree), with the general film watching public and many producers, is that they have not been exposed to much of foreign cinema, let alone most of the independent films which gain huge followings but go unnoticed by the general public, and therefore someone who markets an idea properly, be it original or not, can get away with taking someone else's idea which was truly original, but not immensly popular, and turning that into success, or even in some cases, a cult film. The latter evokes some laughter on my part, because having a cult film being based on the original work of another cult film, really says something about the audience who follows such an unoriginal film without trying to truly discover its roots.Now, does this take anything away from Reservoir Dogs or City on Fire for that matter? No. I believe that generally most who will see either film will, and should for that matter, go on to enjoy both films to the extent that they are impressioned by them for their originality and substance without caring about these 'minor details'.However, after seeing both films and actually taking them for their worth, I believe that it is clear in what classes, either enthusiast or artist, to put Lam and Tarantino in.