User:FrostFairBlade/sandbox/City on Fire (1987 film)

City on Fire (traditional Chinese: 龍虎風雲; simplified Chinese: 龙虎风云; Jyutping: lung4 fu2 fung1 wan4; lit. 'dragon tiger turbulence') is a 1987 Hong Kong crime-thriller film directed by Ringo Lam, who also produced with Karl Maka. The film stars Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee, and Sun Yueh. Following A Better Tomorrow (1986), it helped establish Chow's popularity as an action star in Asia, and, to a lesser degree, North America.

Plot

Fed up with the necessity of betraying others in his line of work, undercover police officer Ko Chow is ready to resign and marry his girlfriend, Hung. However, when fellow undercover officer Chan Kam-wah is fatally stabbed after having his cover blown, Chow is presented with one last job by his superior, Inspector Lau. Chow begrudgingly accepts Lau's request to replace Chan in his covert investigation into a gang of jewellery thieves.

After the thieves' next robbery goes awry and they narrowly escape the police, the police commissioner sets up a task force dedicated to pursuing the gang. A young inspector, John Chan, is put in charge of the task force. Both Lau and Chan are irked by each other's presence, as both consider the other out of their depth. Unaware that Chow is working undercover, Chan orders Criminal Investigation Department members to track Chow as he organizes a weapons sale with the gang and middleman Tai Song. After learning of the case, Hung becomes incensed that Chow is reneging on his promise to marry her.

At Lau's insistence, Chow arranges for real handguns to be delivered to a locker at a bowling alley. When meeting the thieves, Chow narrowly avoids getting caught with a tape recorder fastened around his waist. One of the robbers, Fu, is satisfied with the sample gun, and instructs Chow to meet him again in two days' time to buy additional guns and ammunition. Lau assures him that he will fulfill this request. When Chow learns that Hung is ready to board a flight to Canada with a potential suitor named Tso, he begs his girlfriend to marry him immediately in order to change her mind. Hung tells Chow to meet her at the register office the next day to prove his sincerity, but is ultimately stood up by him.

On his way to the bowling alley, Chow notes that he is being tailed by policemen. Through a phone call Lau orders Chow to proceed while he sorts out the situation with Chan. While talking to Chan, Lau mentions Chow as an informer, but keeps his status as an undercover cop a secret. Chan refuses Lau's request to stop following Chow. Now on his own, Chow shakes off his police pursuers at an MTR station by boarding a departing train. While getting the bag with the guns, he notices Fu at the bowling alley. As he leaves the building, the police arrive. Chow manages to escape by jumping from a window and is picked up at street level by Fu who's approaching in a car. They drive to the gang's hideout since their leader wants to meet Chow. He offers Chow the chance to participate in an upcoming big holdup.

Fu drives Chow to the airport where he meets Hung, who's about to board a plane to Canada with Tso. Chow tries to change her mind, but is arrested by the police for selling weapons (while Hung boards the plane). At the police station, Chow is beat up and tortured by Chan's men who want to know the buyer of the weapons. Chan's superior enters the room, orders Chan's men to release Chow and calls Chan and Lau into his office. Lau admits to having given Chow the weapons for the weapons deal, but keeps quiet about Chow being an undercover cop. Since illegal possession of a firearm is a minor offense, Chan proposes that Chow participates in the holdup to catch the robbers red-handed. Lau considers that too much of a risk, but ultimately the police chief orders Chow's participation in the planned robbery.

There are four possible jewelry stores the gang might rob. All have weak security measures, valuable merchandise and are located at busy roads. After the robbery, the gang plans to drive to a hideout in the harbour area where a boat will pick them up the following day. The police is unaware which store will be targeted, but plans to keep several police teams on standby nearby.

On the eve of the robbery, the gang leader orders the participants to gather at an apartment. For security reasons, they need to spend the remaining time before the holdout together and hand in their pagers. Chow writes the address of the hideout on a piece of paper, but is unable to pass it on to his police colleagues. Chow and Fu share a room and talk about their history and future plans – Fu's wife left him and he never saw his son again, to which Chow tells him that his wife also left him and the men become increasingly close. During the night Chow reads a letter from Hung who tells him that she didn't go to Canada with Tso, but is waiting for him in Hawaii.

The next morning the police leadership orders the police teams out of standby since they don't expect the robbery to happen soon any longer. This is a misjudgment, as the gang leader calls his men together and designates the Tai Kong jewellery store as their target. Since the special police teams stood down, the store is only guarded by two plainclothes policemen in a patrol car. The holdup starts when four of the robbers enter the store, draw their guns, and request the jewellery. Fu and Chow wait at the entrance to keep an eye on the street while the gang leader waits in a getaway car. There Chow realises that it was Fu whom eyewitnesses described as the cop killer who started the firefight during the jewellery factory heist.

When the store alarm is triggered, Big Song (one of the robbers) shoots a saleswoman. While they are trying to escape to their cars, the two policemen guarding the store open fire, wounding gang member Bill. One of the getaway cars is stopped by the police. Fu, Chow, Joe, and Big Song need to leave Bill behind under heavy fire. Joe is killed by police while Big Song tries to hot-wire another getaway car. In an audacious maneuver Fu confronts an approaching police car and kills the four policemen inside, although he gets shot into the shoulder. Chow saves Fu's life by killing the policeman who shot at Fu.

Fu, Chow, Big Song, and Bony (the fourth surviving gang member) escape with the stolen car to the hideout at the harbour, where they meet the gang leader who was already awaiting them. Meanwhile, the police find Chow's note with the address of the hideout at the scene of the firefight.

The leader suspects a traitor among the gang since the police arrived too quickly at the crime scene. He incriminates Chow since he only recently joined their ranks. Big Song and Fu defend Chow and a Mexican standoff emerges.

The police arrives and surrounds the hideout with dozens of men. When Chan requests the men to surrender, Big Song shoots at the police. They open fire and kill him. Bony tries to surrender and is shot by the gang leader for cowardice. When the boss also tries to shoot Chow and Fu, they kill him instead. Chow is wounded by a police bullet and realises his injury is fatal. He confesses to Fu that he's a cop and asks for a quick death, but Fu feels unable to kill Chow. While the police storms the hideout and arrest Fu, Chow dies next to him. Lau is furious about his death and smashes a brick on Chan's head (who's already boasting to a superior about his success) and storms off.

Cast

• Chow Yun-fat as Ko Chow: An undercover police officer
• Danny Lee as Fu: A member of the gang of jewelry thieves
• Sun Yueh as Inspector Lau: A veteran of the police force and Ko Chow's supervisor
• Carrie Ng as Hung: Ko Chow's long-suffering girlfriend
• Roy Cheung as Inspector John Chan: A brash, young police inspector

Local singer Maria Cordero appears in her debut film role as a nightclub singer.

Production

Conception

• The film was Lam's fifth film; he had previously directed four other films while under contract with Cinema City, all of them comedies
• Lam's previous directorial work, the comedy Aces Go Places IV (1986), did unexpectedly well at the box office
• However, Lam was unsatisfied with simply doing comedies for Cinema City
• Cinema City executive Karl Maka told Lam that he could direct any film of his choice, as long as the film's budget did not exceed HK$4,000,000
• Lam was unsure of what film he would like to direct, but decided to try making a gritty, realistic crime film after recalling how much he liked watching The French Connection (1971)

Writing

• The story for City on Fire stemmed from a news article about a jewelry store robbery that Lam was intrigued by
• Film historian Grady Hendrix cites a specific incident in 1984 as Lam's inspiration: a high-profile robbery where six armed men stole over HK$1.8 million worth of luxury watches from the Time Watch Company in Tsim Sha Tsui, which resulted in a wild gunfight in which nine people were injured
• The robbers made him wonder why the police at the scene initially failed to capture any of the criminals, leaving him to ponder about who is the "hero" in that situation
• The strange details surrounding the case inspired Lam to draft a story about an undercover officer infiltrating a gang and befriending one of the gang members
• To gather insight, Lam personally attended the thieves' criminal trial, and interviewed various police officers and gang members
• When writing the script, Lam chose to inject the same feeling of helplessness that he had felt when directing the studio-mandated comedies earlier in his career
• Using Lam's story, screenwriter Tommy Sham (沈西城) then fleshed out the rest of the script
• For the film's English title, Lam selected "On Fire" to give the film "a sense of energy, of action."

Development and pre-production

• Andrew Lau served as the cinematographer; he had previously worked on other films like Legendary Weapons of China (1982) and Millionaires Express (1986)
• Chu Kai-sang was brought on as the action choreographer
• Art direction was provided by Luk Chi-fung; Wong Ming-lam was hired as the film's editor

Casting

• Lam chose Chow Yun-fat to play the undercover officer Ko Chow
• For the part of the robber that Chow would befriend, Lam cast against type and selected Danny Lee, an actor who typically portrayed policemen
• Lam remembered that Lee was hesitant to take the role, stating that the actor was worried the audience would not accept him playing a criminal
• Filling the role of John Chan was local model Roy Cheung, who had only appeared in small acting roles before Lam cast him based on his physique
• Speaking about Cheung, Lam remarked, "What I like about him is that his face has this brutish quality, but there's this intelligence behind it. I still don't think he's had the attention he deserves."
• Sham recalled that they wanted to cast Cherie Chung as Hung, but that Maka rejected the idea out of concern that she was too expensive for the film's budget
• Instead, Carrie Ng, who had previously worked as a television actress, was cast
• Sham also revealed that he was asked by Lam to play a small role in the film in order to save money on casting

Filming

• Lam wanted to deliver a gritty realism to his action scenes; describing his method, he said: "In most films, when someone is shot, they fall down out of frame and that's it. I wanted to show the effect of someone really being shot."
• The scene where Chow sprints away from the police was filmed on Nathan Road in Kowloon
• To film this sequence, a van with a cameraman onboard filmed Chow as he ran down the main road

Post-production

• While Wong Ming-lam is credited as the movie's editor, both the Hong Kong Film Archive and Ming Pao report that Tony Chow (周國忠), a Cinema City film editor who was promoted to manage its post-production facilities, helped edit the film

Music

• Singer-songwriter Teddy Robin composed the film's music
• Robin was a frequent contributor to Cinema City films, where his efforts alongside Tsui Hark, Nansun Shi, Eric Tsang and the company's three founders led the group to become colloquially known as the "Team of Seven"
• The score that Robin composed largely utilized the saxophone; according to writer Paul Duncan, Lam asked for the score to include the instrument because it reminded him of lonely times in his life
• The film's theme song was performed by Maria Cordero
  • The song, a jazzy number titled《要爭取快樂》(colloquially known as 《嘥氣》; saai1 hei3; 'to waste one's breath'), is described by Robin's biography in the Hong Kong Film Archive as "groundbreaking for the Cantopop genre"

Design

• Lau recalled that the film's lighting and cinematography—utilizing blues and greens with natural lighting—was different from other films produced in Hong Kong at the time

Release

Context

• Authors Lisa Odham Stokes and Michael Hoover note that the early to mid 1980s was marked by a rise of violent street crime, with a 185% increase in drug possession and trafficking during the same time period
• Throughout the 1980s, the films of popular action stars like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao were often set in contemporary Hong Kong
  • Their use of the city as a backdrop for fighting spectacle helped usher in the rise of urban action films like A Better Tomorrow (1986) and City on Fire
• Films about Triads and policemen had been a recurring staple of Hong Kong cinema; films like Alex Cheung's Man on the Brink (1981) had explored the common trope of going undercover

Box office

• In Taiwan, the film earned NT$6,914,417 across 38 theatres
• The New York Times reported in 2015 that while the film was screened at festivals and niche theatres, it was never given a theatrical release in the United States

Reception

Critical response

• Variety: "City on Fire is Cinema City's answer to The French Connection."
  • Called it "highly animated, fast-moving entertainment"
  • Liked the story: said that the "dramatic conflicts are well-controlled to avoid the usual soap opera ingredients"
  • Liked the music, saying the score complemented the "well-balanced" acting
• Michael MacCambridge, Austin American-Statesman, Two-and-a-half stars out of five: "For fans of Hong Kong cinema or Tarantino, City on Fire's worth seeing once. Reservoir Dogs, the far superior movie, clearly cribbed from this film. But Tarantino did his teacher one better."
  • Liked the film's sense of style: "Lam's film stands as a stylized triumph of its time. Possessed of some brilliantly veristic scenes shot on location in the streets of Hong Kong, it exhibits the same noirish take on the police procedural that would make an international star out of director John Woo."
  • Criticized the plot - "Less effective in this film are ongoing subplots between Chow and his fiancee—making little sense—and the detective Sun's power struggle with a younger colleague (and rival) on the force."
• Marjorie Baumgarten, The Austin Chronicle: "[...] Lam's film stands on its own two feet, more or less."
  • Noted that the similarities between Reservoir Dogs and City on Fire are only really apparent in the last part of the film
  • Lamented that the poor subtitles get in the way of comprehending the plot: "Lam's film is more of an extended meditation on the virtues of loyalty more than anything else, [...] complete with many lengthy sequences of inscrutable dialogue that poorly translate the obviously genuine emotions behind them, if at all."
  • Somewhat critical of the casting of Chow: "Chow Yun-fat seems vaguely miscast here as the sympathetic, downtrodden cop who gets too close to his target, with predictable results."
• Kim Newman, Empire, 4/5: "Aside from the Dogs fuss, it's an impressive thriller that lays to rest the rumour that all Hong Kong has to offer is John Woo."
  • Remarked that Lam's directorial style with action scenes was "less cool" and "more frenetic" than John Woo
  • Stated that viewers might be pleasantly surprised with Chow's "hyperactive and neurotic" performance, which differed from the calm and collected roles he played that Western audiences might be more familiar with
  • Regarding Reservoir Dogs: Newman thought that Tarantino did not borrow very many elements from City on Fire at all
• Rob Mackie, The Guardian, 3/5: "City of Fire, made by the splendidly monikered Ringo Lam, can't match all of that [in Reservoir Dogs], but it's an enjoyable crime thriller in its own right [...]"
  • Remarked that the amount of City on Fire that Tarantino used for his film was "not as much as you expect"
  • Noted that in addition to Reservoir Dogs, the film influenced other movies like the Infernal Affairs series
• Chris Hicks, Deseret News, 3/4: The film is "loaded with flashy imagery that nicely walks territory previously staked out by John Huston in the '40s, Sam Peckinpah in the '60s, Martin Scorsese in the '70s and John Woo in the '80s."
• Buzz McClain, AllMovie: The film "is a Hong Kong police actioner that barely measures up to standard episodic television fare."
  • Was critical of the lack of action, citing the "brief car chases", "a couple of abbreviated fistfights", and "one or two shootouts"
  • Critical of Danny Lee's acting, stating that he is "perhaps the most non-threatening uber-villain imaginable"
  • Noted that the film's characterization of Carrie Ng's character left him wondering why Chow Yun-fat's character didn't just leave his "high-maintenance, prone-to-violence, schizoid girlfriend"
  • Disliked how the Mexican standoff ended, calling it "as lame as the rest of the film"
• Christopher Null, FilmCritic.com, 3/5: "And while City on Fire has a killer ending indeed, the guts of the film are so-so at best."
  • Critical of the plot, which he found "confusing and poorly explained" while watching the film
  • Critical of the action; described it as "lackluster"

Awards and accolades

• At the 7th Hong Kong Film Awards, City on Fire won the award for Best Actor (Chow) and Best Director (Lam)
  • It was further nominated for seven other awards: Best Film, Best Actor (Lee), Best Supporting Actress (Ng), Best Screenplay (Tommy Sham Sai-sang), Best Editing (Wong Ming-lam), Best Art Direction (Luk Chi-fung), Best Music (Teddy Robin), and Best Film Song (Maria Cordero, "Must Fight for Happiness" 《要爭取快樂》)

Theme notes

Barbara Mennel, Cities and Cinema

• The film examines Ko Chow's conflict between loyalty to his friends and girlfriend, and his duty as a policeman
• The film's setting uses transitional spaces (bars, hotel rooms, etc.), as well as the urban cityscape that Chow is pursued through
• The start of the film, Chow is introduced in the privileged setting of a bar, but when undercover, Chow takes refuge in a dilapidated hotel room, signifying his "lack of a real home"
• Chow, being an undercover agent, is trapped between both sides of the law as the police hone in on him
• In this way, he "reflects Hong Kong's fate, determined by others, of which neither the old nor the new represents a good choice."
• The examination of honour and loyalty hark back to martial arts films, in which male friendship is central to the melodrama
• Ko Chow is put into an impossible situation where he is wracked by guilt and "unable to function authentically in either male bond"
• Lam relies on colour aesthetics to create a "cool" stylized film, and transplants more traditional topics regarding honour into a more modern setting

David Desser, "Global Noir: Genre Film in the Age of Transformation", Film Genre Reader III, edited by Barry Keith Grant

• The most obvious influence on Reservoir Dogs is City on Fire by Ringo Lam
• When the Western media found out that Tarantino had borrowed elements of Lam's film without crediting the original film, Tarantino offered the defense that for years, Hong Kong directors had also done the same thing with Hollywood films
• City on Fire followed the unprecedented success of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986), which helped popularize the Hong Kong gangster thriller genre
• Desser cites Stokes and Hoover's City on Fire book when noting that Lam's film aimed to provide more overt social commentary on Hong Kong
• Both City on Fire and A Better Tomorrow are influenced by the anxiety surrounding the upcoming handover of Hong Kong to mainland China in 1997

Legacy

• Chow and Lee would later go on to star in The Killer (1989), playing characters who would also form an unlikely friendship
• Cheung would go on to play the part of an antagonist prison guard in Prison on Fire (1987), which would help define him as an actor suitable for villain or gangster roles

Cultural impact

• The Bollywood film Kaante (2002), directed by Sanjay Gupta, was inspired by both City on Fire and Reservoir Dogs
• Tarantino and Reservoir Dogs
  • Tarantino biographer Wensley Clarkson noted that the director "had been particularly struck by the way in which [Lam] managed to spin together intricate plot lines" in City on Fire, and chose to use some basic details of Lam's film in his own movie
  • Both Film Threat and Empire brought up the similarities between the two movies
  • At the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, when asked by Film Threat journalist David Bourgeois for comment, Tarantino said:
    • "I loved City on Fire. I got the poster framed in my house, so it's a great movie. [...] I steal from every single movie made. [...] If my work has anything it's because I'm taking from this and from that, piecing them together. If people don't like it, tough titty, don't go see it."
  • Tarantino in 1995: "It's a really cool movie. It influenced me a lot. I got some stuff from it."
  • In March 1995, the New York Underground Film Festival showed a short film by film student Mike White entitled Who Do You Think You're Fooling, which compared the two films
  • Did Tarantino plagiarize?
    • After seeing City on Fire, film critic Jay Stone noted that while Reservoir Dogs was not a "copy" of Lam's film, it was "filled with many of the same scenes" and "common images", and Tarantino did not acknowledge the similarities until he was prompted to
• Lam's thoughts on Reservoir Dogs:
  • "That seems to be very natural. Everybody learns from others; my film learns from American directors. And because of the success of this Reservoir Dogs, that helped my publicity in the States. If there was no Reservoir Dogs, I think today nobody even think about City on Fire."
  • Lam only liked a couple of scenes of Reservoir Dogs, such as the part where Mr. Blonde tortures Marvin Nash

Critical reassessment

• In March 2005, the Hong Kong Film Awards listed City on Fire at #54 of the Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures
• The Hong Kong Film Archive also listed the film at #81 of its "100 Must-See Hong Kong Movies" programme in September 2011, as part of the Archive's 10th anniversary celebrations

External links

• City on Fire at IMDb
• City on Fire at AllMovie
• City on Fire at Rotten Tomatoes
• City on Fire at Letterboxd