In the early 80s there was a new breed of action film starting to plant roots. A genre that kept a lot of the righteous chivalry of old but now it was no longer the pursuit of mastery in the martial world, it was the gun that ruled supreme. Stories of survival on the mean streets of Hong Kong started taking precedent over a plethora of fists and feet meeting face and torso. No longer did a man need to spend a lifetime to seek revenge, one could now do it with a bullet, but why just use one when several give a finality.
Films such as Terry Tong’s Coolie Killer (1982) and Johnny Mak’s Long Arm Of The Law (1984) would set the template by which all others would be set their stall, by the time 1987 came around this sub-genre had not only grown, but was starting to show the world just what it was capable of, and Hollywood was taking notes.
Enter Ringo Lam. A brash upstart that was part of the Hong Kong new wave (also see directors like Tsui Hark and John Woo). These weren’t just fresh faces that had been chewed up by the now defunct Shaw Brothers system (or even their TV arm of production called TVB), these were cinephiles that had left the shores of Clear Water Bay and sought their cinematic education abroad, going to the UK, Canada and the US of A, and it’s with these fresh, Western Crime Film that Hong Kong would find its calling card.
City On Fire (1987) has a unique flavour when lines in direct comparison to many of its contemporaries. It doesn’t play action for action sake, it is a group of men caught in a violent world, choosing pathos over pistols, but never once is it afraid to let the bullets fly. Chow Yun Fat is an undercover cop trying to infiltrate a group of jewel thieves that have remained elusive. Danny Lee is our gang member with blood on his hands, but he is far too in to realistically ever get out. Then there is Sun Yueh, one of Hong Kong’s finest ever character actors, here being an inspector that wants results and is worried where Chow Yun Fat’s loyalty lies.
A key film that set the template for Heroic Bloodshed, choosing pathos over pistols but never once afraid to let the bullets fly.
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Drenched in paranoia, it’s is almost noir-esq in its execution, oozing menace as black as midnight, and whilst the Hong Kong handover would still be a decade away (and something Lam himself would recapture in his 1997 film Full Alert) there is an unease to Ringo Lam’s Hong Kong. A city ready to burn,?if only someone would light the match?
The elephant in the room when it comes to City On Fire is the inevitable comparisons to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992). Tarantino himself has openly admitted to “paying homage” to this film by taking the final 10 minutes and turning it into an entire film, but it does need to be made clear that comparing the two is difficult as they are very different movies. Lam’s “City On Fire” being a battle three men have with the city that created them and “Reservoir Dogs” a slick, hyper stylistic heist movie. An influence? Sure? A direct rip off? That’s a bit harsh.
Arrow Video have lavished this release with a plethora of extras to make any Hong Kong action cinema fan make this a worthwhile purchase. From Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto’s commentary track, to appreciation pieces from Grady Hendrix, Kim Newman and Ric Meyers (the man often credit with coining this he phrase “Heroic Bloodshed”) as well as things like a reversible sleeve and a booklet with writings from Dylan Cheung, making this particular release of City on Fire there best that There has been to date.
As a genre, Heroic Bloodshed still lives on vicariously through hit films like John Wick, but this disc helps encapsulate a time that will never be recaptured, no matter how much they try, but it reminds us of just how influential these films were, and few did it better than City On Fire.
CITY ON FIRE IS OUT NOW ON LIMITED EDITION ARROW VIDEO BLU-RAY
