City on Fire (1987)

After the death of an undercover cop, the Chief Inspector gets his nephew (also an undercover) on the job. The target is a band of armed jewelry thieves. On top of this the police have hired a new investigation team to help on the job, and they interfere with Chief Inspectors work. Nephew, haunted by the past of a criminal he once betrayed, doesn't want to do the job for fear the same will happen again. The ending has heavily influenced Reservoir DogsFeatures: cop killing in beginning, Ko Chow and girlfriend relationship difficulties, jewel heist turned shootout in mall, Ko Chow befriending Tiger and gang, armed deal in graveyard, showdown in bowling alley, police tracking Ko Chow, police brutality in station, Final Jewel heist; shootout in street, shootout in warehouse, mexican standoff(s) finale

CITY ON FIRE is not in the mold of A BETTER TOMORROW or FULL CONTACT. It's a drama about the emotional pressures an undercover police officer faces when he is ordered, against his better judgement, to infiltrate a gang of violent, gun-toting jewel robbers.That Ko Chow (Chow Yun Fat) is having problems with his fiancée makes the situation all the more difficult for him. He's unable to explain why it is he can never keep a date with Hung (Carrie Ng) as only secrecy is keeping him alive. Even his fellow officers don't know he is really an undercover cop and pursue him relentlessly as they (rightly) suspect him of supplying arms to the robbers.The negative points are that the drama between Ko Chow and Hung is never convincingly explored. Even if Ko Chow couldn't tell Hung that he was having meetings with the leader of the jewel thieves, he could at least tell her something. No wonder she leaves him for a sixty- year-old millionaire.Also, Ko Chow's deep bond of friendship with Fu (Danny Lee) is a bit easily formed. It just doesn't convince that one conversation between them about their childhoods would make them so close that one would die for the other.In this respect, the script construction of CITY ON FIRE is a little weak.However, credit should be given to director/writer Ringo Lam for bringing the theme of misplaced loyalty to the undercover cop genre.And though RESERVOIR DOGS is criticised here for stealing the core plot elements of CITY ON FIRE, it has to be said that the structure of Taratino's film is far superior to Lam's. But it would be nice to think Quentin had paid Ringo something for using his ideas.

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.

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.