City on Fire

[yoloswegmaster]

After the success of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow, lead actor Chow Yun Fat cemented his reputation as Hong Kong's hottest new action film megastar with his electrifying performance in Ringo Lam's City on Fire, one of the most beloved examples of the 'heroic bloodshed' subgenre.

Ko (Chow) is an undercover cop on one last job, assigned to infiltrate a gang of jewel thieves committing armed robberies across Hong Kong. When another police officer is killed in the line of duty during one of the gang's heists, Ko finds himself caught in the crossfire between the police force desperate to catch the culprits at any cost, and the trigger-happy thieves who begin to smell a rat in their midst. As the bullets fly and the body count rises, Ko's only hope for survival might be his burgeoning friendship with weary gang member Fu (Danny Lee)...

A marked influence on Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Lam's gritty and dynamic crime thriller has been restored from the original negative and is finally unleashed on home video again in all its lethal fury, looking and sounding more spectacular than ever before.

4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original lossless Cantonese and English mono audio
Optional English subtitles for the Cantonese soundtrack and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
Brand new audio commentary by Hong Kong cinema experts Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto
Burn It Down, a brand new interview with screenwriter Tommy Sham
Hong Kong Confidential, a brand new appreciation by author Grady Hendrix
Some Like It Hot, a brand new appreciation by film historian Ric Meyers
Burning Rivalries, a brand new appreciation by critic Kim Newman
An archival interview with director Ringo Lam
Portrait of Anger, an archive interview with cinematographer Andrew Lau
Long Arm of the Law, an archive interview with co-star Roy Cheung
Theatrical trailer
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
Illustrated collectors' booklet featuring new writing on the film by Dylan Cheung

[yoloswegmaster]

Glad to see the GP titles getting released before the year is over but I am slightly disappointed they aren't releasing the trilogy (or quadrilogy?) in a boxset.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Wow, I love that cover. Is the rest of the series that great shakes?

[Mr Sausage]

Wow, I love that cover. Is the rest of the series that great shakes?

Prison on Fire and School on Fire are terrific: entertaining but often brutal and despairing looks at the failures of Hong Kong’s institutions. The latter is one of the most hopeless social portraits I’ve ever seen. Essential viewing. Prison on Fire 2 is a watchable but unnecessary sequel, while Sky on Fire is wretched, not even seeming to come from the same filmmaker.

[beamish14]

School on Fire reaches a crescendo of violence and anarchy that few films can match. It is an incredible achievement

[Mr Sausage]

School on Fire reaches a crescendo of violence and anarchy that few films can match. It is an incredible achievement

Hopefully the restoration can use the Uncut version, if the excised material is in good enough quality. I’ve seen a fan cut combining the HK blu ray of the theatrical cut with the excised material in noticeably worser quality. Many of the cuts aren’t a huge loss, but that explosive ending is sadly neutered.

School on Fire shares something with Robocop that more right-wing action films often want but fail to inhabit: the system is so broken and perverted that extrajudicial violence becomes not only necessary but redemptive. Lam’s most despairing film along with Full Alert. And a good extension of City on Fire’s portrait of a police system so dysfunctional and run on self interest that it becomes the enemy to its own undercover officers!

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Thanks, Sausage - the entire trilogy is on my radar now. I've got that Eureka copy of Full Alert so I'll be sure watch that one too.

[brundlefly]

City, Prison, School, and Prison II are all streaming on Criterion starting next month. For those who have that as an option.

[Mr Sausage]

Here's my take on City from elsewhere:

A blistering portrait of Hong Kong in all its dirty splendour. The bars, clubs, and cafes are conventional to urban crime thrillers, but Hong Kong is especially suited to them, and Lam makes the most of his extensive location shooting to show a crowded, rushing urban life full of grime and neon. You feel Chow Yun-Fat’s sweaty desperation as he rushes about Hong Kong trying to keep his precarious life from spiraling out altogether. This is not a blood soaked, bullet ballet heroic bloodshed film, this is a nervy crime thriller, and most of the action is tense or brutal, without any chance for heroics. The people here are just trying to keep one step ahead of disaster. Given all the discourse these days about copaganda, it’s interesting how often Hong Kong movies refuse to valourize the police. Here, they’re squabbling and incommunicative, frequently powerless, ready to commit human rights abuses, and more concerned about their petty fiefdoms than upholding justice. Tho’ Chow Yun-Fat plays an undercover detective, it’s his fellow officers rather than the gang of thieves who are the bad guys. If the film has a flaw, it’s that its jittery narrative doesn’t give enough time to developing Chow Yun-Fat and Danny Lee’s relationship, instead trying to shove a movie’s worth of developing camaraderie into the final thirty minutes. I liked the movie when I saw it back in high school, but I was watching it under the shadow of John Woo, and part of me was disappointed it wasn’t a heroic bloodshed tale full of intense shootouts. Now I’m able to see Lam’s film without that baggage, on its own terms, and I loved it. It’s an exhilarating movie.

[yoloswegmaster]

Extras have been added to the first post. Funny to call these extras "Brand new" when they are the same ones that Shout produced for their release. It also looks to have archival interviews with Andrew Lau and Roy Cheung, neither of which are on the Shout release.

[nicolas]

Next to his booklet essay, Dylan Cheung is also involved in revising the subtitles.

[Finch]

Glad to hear that's the case but I think they should mention that in the specs too.

[Finch]

I just finished rewatching the film on Arrow's 4k, watched the Tommy Sham interview and read Dylan Cheung's essay.

Arrow's presentation of the film starts with Shout Studio's logo and even their Hongkong Cinema Classics logo, the latter of which I wasn't expecting. I traded Shout's 4K two months ago but I don't think they mention on the back cover who did the encoding for them. Arrow cites Visual Data Media Services in their booklet.

Now, the subs: I think Dylan did a terrific job with them. The Shout subs got the gist across but felt stilted and often abrupt (even before I compare against Dylan's). Dylan's subs for Arrow flow far more naturally. His translation has flavor and character and made for a richer experience for me. If other people are happy with the basics provided by the Shout subs, cool, but having seen City of Fire with Dylan's subs, I couldn't ever see myself going back to Shout. PS.: I think he may have re-translated the Sham interview too but I never watched it on the Shout, so maybe James Flower can confirm.

I also very much enjoyed his writing on the film, and Tommy Sham's interview where he talks candidly and with some melancholy about his experience in the HK film industry and the lack of respect shown to writers there (though I imagine US scriptwriters would tell him it's not that much better in the US, pay perhaps excepted). The font and sound effects Shout used for the opener of the interview made me roll my eyes a little but they deserve credit for reaching out and producing the interview at all. A really nice piece. I've not seen the Newman and Myers features and the archival stuff yet but based on Dylan's contributions alone, I feel the Arrow is an "A" and the Shout a "B".

Some people might give Arrow more bonus points for the Tony Stella slipcover; for me, it's neither here nor there. Too many labels are asking Stella to do the same busy compositions over and over again which IMO sells his talent short. (On the other hand, BFI's slipcover for Eyes Without A Face which I also got today looks quite nice in hand)