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. A marked influence on Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Lam's gritty and dynamic crime thriller is a gruesome cop thriller that screams 1980s cool.

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)...

Reviews
"Chow Yun Fat is exceptional in a role that has him portraying his trademark combination of coolness and goofiness, but also a man whose angst is killing him inside but has to appear calm on the outside. Fat portrays this inner struggle in impressive fashion, in one of the best roles of his career." – Asian Movie Pulse