City on Fire [Lung foo fong wan] **** (1987, Chow Yun-Fat, Danny Lee, Yueh Sun) – Classic Movie Review 4,286

An inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992), director Ringo Lam’s top-notch 1987 Hong Kong violent revenge cops ‘n’ robbers action thriller film City on Fire has no trouble standing up on its own merits.

Allegedly the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992), director Ringo Lam’s top-notch 1987 Hong Kong violent revenge cops ‘n’ robbers action thriller film City on Fire [Lung foo fong wan] has no trouble standing up on its own merits, with a tough-edged story about an undercover cop shot dead during a gang raid on a jeweller’s.

Chan Kam-wah (Elvis Tsui) is killed by three attackers while investigating a group of jewellery thieves, and Inspector Lau assigns another undercover officer called Ko Chow to continue the investigation. Inspector John Chan leads a task force to investigate the gang, leading to a rivalry between Chan and Lau.

Chow Yun-Fat is a strong presence as the wayward undercover cop Ko Chow, whose loyalties are tested as his life is threatened, in this continually gripping thriller spurred on by the complex, multi-stranded story with amazing bursts of fast action and flashy, visceral film-making on Hong Kong street locations. Danny Lee also stars as gang member Fu, with Sun Yueh as Inspector Lau.

Also in the cast are Carrie Ng as Hung, Roy Cheung as Inspector John Chan, Lau Kong as Inspector Chow and Parkman Wong as Detective.

The story is by Ringo Lam and the screenplay by Tommy Sham. The photographer is Wai Keung Lau, the producers are Ringo Lam and Karl Maka, the score is by Teddy Robin Kwan and the production is designed by Chi Fung Lok.

Tarantino said in 1994: ‘I love City on Fire and I have the poster for it framed in my house. It’s a great movie. I steal from every single movie ever made. I love it. Great artists steal, they don’t do homages.’

Ringo Lam said in 1995: ‘I am lucky that people can take my film and compare it with Reservoir Dogs. It can only make my name better known and help my career actually.’

Runtime: 105 minutes.

Release date: February 13, 1987.

A spruced up version of the movie, with splendidly re-recorded sound, appears on the 2001 DVD release.

Chow Yun-fat and Danny Lee appear together two years later in John Woo’s The Killer.

Ringo Lam Ling-Tung (8 December 1955 – 29 December 2018) 

RIP Hong Kong director Ringo Lam, found dead in bed by his wife on 29 December 2018, aged 63.

Lam’s last film, Sky on Fire, the final instalment in his On Fire series, was released in 2016.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 4,286

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