City War (Sing si jin jaang, 1988)

Sun Chung

Hong Kong

96 min, color, Cantonese (English subtitles)

Despite my efforts to find some redeeming quality in City War, I have to admit defeat and classify the film as an unsuccessful attempt to translate a decent unoriginal story into a good typical HK action flick. Although one cannot deny the chemistry between Chow Yun-Fat and Ti Lung, the director basically damaged irreparably just about every scene with a astoundingly inept handling of the camera and the editing board. Every potentially dramatic scene was spoiled rotten by the unhealthy addiction to slow motion, an affliction shared by many HK directors who seem to think that audiences need time to soak in the goings on. Yeah, except it works both ways --- there's a limit to the time in which I can stomach a slow-moving "Nooooooo"-shouting Yun-Fat run like the bionic woman. (For those interested, it is about .5 milliseconds.) It looks quite ridiculous, and detracts from the impact of an explosive action.

Ken Chow (Ti Lung) is an experienced cop, whose been on the force for years and who, despite his reputation for hot-headed no-holds-barred approach to apprehending criminals, is really quite restrained when it comes to shooting bad guys. In fact, ten years prior to the film's time, he and his partner busted the drug-trafficking Ted Yiu (Norman Chu), with his partner wounding Ted in the process. Now, a decade later, Ted is out of prison and hungry for revenge. Even before his release, he arranges some Mainlanders to cap Ken's partner.

Dick Lee (Chow Yun-Fat) is Ken's younger buddy, a crack shot, and a skilled hostage negotiator. When Ted phones Ken to start the game of nerves, Dick tries to get involved and find a solution to the potentially lethal situation. The mediation attempt is unsuccessful for neither Ted nor Ken want to compromise: the first blames the second for putting him away, and the second blames the first for killing his partner. Ted hires more Mainlanders for a hit on Ken but things go wrong and they murder Ken's wife and daughter, and severely wound his son. Dick goes berserk and, trying to redeem himself in the eyes of his friend for what he perceives as his failure to prevent the tragedy, he goes on a bloody rampage of revenge against Ted and his gang. The final apocalyptic shoot-out occurs in a bus garage and is quite impressive without ever reaching the quality of a John Woo version.

For what it was worth, Yun-Fat and Lung make a great combination, although I was somewhat distracted by Dick's freewheeling character, whose lack of emotional depth at the beginning make his psychotic breakdown somewhat improbable. For some reason, Sun Chung included several unnecessary scenes (e.g. the match-making one) and then failed to develop the potentially extremely interesting angle of Dick's relationship with Ted's girlfriend Penny (Tien Niu). Although she is eventually sacrificed, proving once again that in the male bonding world of HK action there is no room for females, her great dilemma is left underexplored and her attraction to Dick seems to come out of nowhere. Finally, what the heck did we need the conflict with the dummy superior cop for?

The film would have been much better had these concerns been addressed. It would have scored much higher too if the director had done a half-decent job. The slow-mo infliction sucked all the energy out of every scene and it did not matter how malevolent Norman Chu tried to look (this, by the way, he did with great success), the cartoonish approach killed any tension that had a chance of forming. This is the sort of thing that can ruin your whole day. The other thing with decimating impact is the infamous Canto pop, of which there were at least two scenes (when one is too many).

The Universe DVD is about average. The colors are slightly unstable, there is some bleeding, and a lot of soft focus effect, mainly due to excessive (and not very good) compression. The problem is especially obvious in the darker scenes (i.e. about 80% of the film). The Cantonese track is also not very good, although mostly noise-free. The English subtitles are readable and not too bad, making the whole release a good way to spend $4 but not more.

October 6, 2001.