| City on Fire | |
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Hong Kong theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Ringo Lam |
| Produced by | Karl Maka Ringo Lam |
| Written by | Ringo Lam |
| Starring | Chow Yun-fat Danny Lee Sun Yueh Carrie Ng Roy Cheung |
| Music by | Teddy Robin Kwan |
| Cinematography | Andrew Lau |
| Editing by | Wong Ming-Lam |
| Distributed by | Cinema City Film Co. Ltd. (Hong Kong) |
| Release date(s) | Hong Kong February 13, 1987 |
| Running time | 98 min. |
| Country | Hong Kong |
| Language | Cantonese Mandarin |
| Box office | Hong Kong HK$ 19,723,505 |
City on Fire (simplified Chinese: 龙虎风云; traditional Chinese: 龍虎風雲; pinyin: Lóng hǔ fēng yún) is a gritty and stylish 1987 Hong Kong action crime drama film produced and directed by Ringo Lam, and starring Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee and Sun Yueh. Following A Better Tomorrow (1986), it helped establish Chow's popularity as an action star in Asia, and to a lesser degree, North America.
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Ko Chow (Chow Yun-fat) is an undercover cop who is under pressure from all sides. His boss, Inspector Lau (Yueh Sun), wants him to infiltrate a gang of ruthless jewel thieves; in order to do this he must obtain some handguns; his girlfriend (Carrie Ng) wants him to commit to marriage or she will leave Hong Kong with another lover; and he is being pursued by other cops who are unaware that he is a colleague.
What is more Chow would rather quit the force. He feels guilty about having to betray people who have become his friends, even if they do happen to be killers, drug dealers, loan sharks and protection racketeers: "I do my job, but I betray my friends."
To add to his problems, he begins to bond with Fu (Danny Lee), a member of the gang.
City on Fire is Ringo Lam's most celebrated work. Quentin Tarantino's 1992 film Reservoir Dogs includes several similar key plot elements and scenes, most notably the famous Mexican standoff near the end of the film. When Tarantino was accused of copying the film without attribution, MTV quoted Tarantino as saying he was "dying to see the Hong Kong original."
Chow Yun-Fat and Danny Lee faced a role-reversal two years later when, in John Woo's The Killer, Chow plays a hitman who bonds with Lee, this time appearing as the cop.
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