City War
City War
| 21 December 1988 (USA)
City War Trailers

Two cops--both partners and best friends--find their friendship and their lives at stake when they try to take down a ruthless drug dealer.

Reviews
Alicia

I love this movie so much

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Incannerax

What a waste of my time!!!

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Kidskycom

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

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StyleSk8r

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

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dworldeater

City War is a gritty, grim and hard hitting melodramatic action movie .Chow Yun Fat and Ti Lung team up again (this was released one year after A Better Tomorrow 2) for some more heroic bloodshed . Even though our protagonists are cops , I do consider this a heroic bloodshed film. Ti Lung is a tough , bad tempered cop named Kerosine Ken. Ken put away triad baddie Ted Yiue( played most vicious by Norman Chu) and now that he is out of prison is looking for revenge.CYF plays Ken 's buddy is a smooth talking hostage negotiator and ladies man.There is a little comedy early on but disappears as the film builds to its violent, nihilistic climax.As things rapidly go to hell CYF and Ti Lung go all out for revenge.Director Sun Chun did a fine job on this film . While in the same vein as John Woo's films, City War is much darker, gritty and gloomy in tone and style .With the incredible talent and chemistry of CYF and Ti Lung , City War really holds up well as an awesome work of heroic bloodshed.

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Chung Mo

The second to last film of Shaw director Sun Chung's career reunites him with his long time best actor Ti Lung. It's also Chung's only effort to work in the new style action cinema of late 1980's Hong Kong.The film has many of the hallmarks of HK cinema of the late 1980's and early 1990's, frenetic action, over the top near hysterical acting, stunt men being throw over all sorts of hard objects, extreme pessimism with the system and a feeling that chaos and crime is just around the corner. Distrust of Mainland China is a repeated theme as the HK criminals smuggle in assassins from there. While the character of "Dick", played by Chow Yun Fat, behaves like a clown at times and many of the early scenes reflect that, the film is really about as downbeat as one can get. If the citizens of Hong Kong really felt that the system was as bad as portrayed here, it a wonder anyone stayed there before China took over. As a film it certainly has the solid and stylish direction that Sun Chung put into all his work even with the lower budget he clearly had to work with here. The action scenes are generally well done, better than other films of the time, but the plot leaves a bit to be desired. A fascinating husband and wife assassination team is introduced at the beginning of the film only to be seen going back to China by train in the middle, never to return. Why bother introducing them at all if the heroes are never going to battle them? Not bad if you like this genre, the actors are great, and the film isn't too long.

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winner55

while not a great film, of the first round of 'new wave' action films to come out of Hong Kong in the later 1980s, this has been the most imitated - not the films of Woo and Lam.Probably the main reason for this is that the characters wear their emotions on their sleeves. When it's time to have fun, they do nothing but have fun, when it's time to cry, they cry rivers. And of course, when it's time to fight, they go at it with a fury rarely seen in action films - which of course makes this a very good action film, since such fury is really what action film fans want to see.This emotional openness invites over-acting, and there are certainly moments of that here, especially from the usually more guarded Chow Yun-Fat. On the other hand, this is a perfect venue for Ti Lung, who was trained in the more histrionic method expected of all Shaw Bros. stars of the '70s; and Ti Lung's performance really makes this film believable, despite some rather twists in the relationships presented here (such as the odd respect everyone pays to the aging triad boss).It's a tough, dramatic story, and the gun-fight at the end is among the best in Hong Kong action cinema. Certainly not a classic like "The Killer" or "City on Fire", but you won't go wrong watching this, even a couple times.

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Ishallwearpurple

Ti Lung as Ken and Chow Yun-Fat as Dick are back as policeman only this time, Dick is the calm negotiator and Ken the hot head, flying off the handle. These guys are such good actors that they make their characters believable. City War has the usual very bad guys and lots of guns and bloody battles. But it also has some music and domestic scenes with Ken's family - and Ken's wife fixing Dick up with a woman and the funny scene with the two of them getting acquainted.The scene of Chow dancing with the villains girlfriend Penny (before he knows who she is), is one of the most erotic ever in one of his films. This guy can do anything - he is just amazing and each film shows another of his great portrayals.This is not a must have but for true CYF fans, or Ti Lung, it is one to see at least once.

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