It's 1988 and 1997 is looming... and even if it is never mentioned, the retrocession to China is everywhere in this movie.

It takes advantage of a vehicle for Chow Yun Fat, the John Woo generation of let's remember the glory of yesteryears codes of honor and pride, and Ti Lung, the Shaw brothers generation of clear cut manicheism and black and white morals, to generate a troubled twilight movie full of pathos and nihilism.

Hong Kong is drowning, the cops resent being on the losing side of a failing law and order, ambitions within a disintegrating power structure overtake integrity, even the OG coming out of a long jail sentence and falling to the ground to kiss it, fails to taste at first that this is not the country he had left behind. Westerners are basically rude tourists and smugglers trying to squeeze a quick butt or make a quick buck, the mainland is the source for violent unprincipled low life, and the heroes do not finish in a blaze of glory but rather in a haze of destruction and, ultimately jail.

Make no mistake this is a testosterone driven, hyper violent, bloody and full of bullet choreography. Chow Yun Fat, Ti Lung and Norman Chu you get plenty of that. But their actions more than honor driven are born from despair and pain.

One other way Sun Chung tells us times are at an end is through the treatment of women characters; they have a consistency rather rare in this genre of movies. Torn between her loyalty to her ganster former lover and her attraction to the cop with attitude, Penny is driven by actual tenderness and libido, not the usual fodder for abuse role devoted to young women in HK gangster genre. The wife of the older policeman is a pivotal presence of stability and family values, not the devoted house scrubbing table serving wound dressing servant too often portrayed in such films. And the fact that they both end up victims to the madness of men is a message from Sun Chung as to the loss of modernity he fears for Hong-Kong.

Sung Chu was born in Taiwan, this is is penultimate movie, in the early 90es he retired from directing, this is not a mindless action and pathos offering, it's a message and a farewell.

Oddly enough, then I hadn't heard about "City War" (aka "Yee dam hung seon") before now in 2021, as I had the chance to sit down to watch it. And with it being a Hong Kong movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I jumped at the chance to watch it.

And with it being watched now, I must admit that "City War" was a fairly typical movie in the Hong Kong action genre. Sure, if you are new to these movies, then "City War" will prove to be quite interesting. But if you are familiar with the genre and have seen more than your share of the movies, then chances are that you will find "City War" to be just another generic run-of-the-mill action movie that are found in great abundance in this period of the Hong Kong cinema.

For me, it was the somewhat stale storyline that was holding the movie back, because the action sequences in the movie were definitely good, and there was quite a bit of action throughout the course of the movie. But the storyline was just a bit too generic and mundane to properly entertain me. Now, don't get me wrong here, because "City War" is certainly a watchable movie, it just wasn't and outstanding movie.

The movie did have some good lead actors to portray the main characters, those being Yun-Fat Chow and Lung Ti.

Writers Lu Tung, Wai Ting Leung and Kai-Cheung Chung just seemed to put their money on the safe bet and go for something that everyone else was doing at that time in the Hong Kong action cinema. And that made for a somewhat mundane addition to the genre.

My rating of "City War" lands on a mediocre five out of ten stars. If you enjoy Yun-Fat Chow movies, then there are far better action movies with him in the lead role.

Sun Chung's penultimate film as director after a high point making some late-stage Shaw Brothers classics. This one's a contemporary cop thriller in which two cops go up against recently released former criminal Norman Chu, who doesn't take long to get up to his old tricks. Another Shaw veteran, Ti Lung, plays the middle-aged cop and family member with a volatile streak, while Chow Yun-fat is the cocky and lovable young guy that he always plays. The first half isn't really get, with too many dancing and silly comedy scenes even by Hong Kong standards, but the second half picks up with two impressive set-pieces: a home invasion attack that wows, and a bus terminal climax that delivers all the action you want.