City on Fire review – Tarantino’s inspired Hong Kong film burns with tension and moral tension | film

RIngo Lam’s Hong Kong cop thriller gained a new level of recognition in the West when Quentin Tarantino admitted he borrowed heavily from its plot for his own film Reservoir Dogs. In fact, apart from the details of the plot (culminating in that famous Mexican standoff), there is little comparison. There are no wisecracks about Madonna’s lyrics or torture scenes set to ’70s soft rock here; Instead, you get often bloody violence in the crowded streets and night markets of Hong Kong (which looks great in this new restoration), and a poignant tale of cops, robbers, and divided loyalties. (To be fair, Lam, in turn, was inspired by the 1970s Hindi thriller Gadar.)

You also get Chow Yun-fat in the prime of his life, as an undercover police officer accused of infiltrating a gang of jewel thieves. Unlike Reservoir Dogs, we know he’s a cop from the start, and the story contrasts the infighting and brutality among his forces with the relative honor and camaraderie he finds among the criminals – which even includes the one who killed his colleague (Danny Lee). In his secret persona, Chow is cool and buffoonish, but he also effectively conveys the loss and turmoil of his dual identity. Chow’s work in John Woo’s exhilarating action films like A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled put the era of Hong Kong cinema of the late 1980s and early 1990s on the global map, but the genre is much more brutal and realistic, full of sordid locations, hard choices and surprising deaths as well as some exciting chases and shootouts.