City on Fire: Limited Edition – Arrow Video (UHD)

Theatrical Release Date: Hong Kong, 1987
Director: Ringo Lam
Writers: Tommy Sham, Ringo Lam
Cast: Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee, Sun Yueh, Carrie Ng, Roy Cheung, Lau Kong, Elvis Tsui

Release Date: December 1st, 2025
Approximate Running Time: 105 Minutes 11 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen / 2160 Progressive / HEVC / H.265 / HDR10 Dolby Vision
Rating: 18 (UK)
Sound: LPCM Mono Cantonese, LPCM Mono English
Subtitles: English, English SDH
Region Coding: Region Free
Retail Price: £29.99 (UK)

"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)..." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 5/5

Here’s the information provided about this release's transfer, “The original negative was sourced from the Hong Kong Film Archive and was scanned by Interface Video Production Ltd. in Hong Kong.”

City on Fire comes on a 100 GB triple layer 4K UHD.

Disc Size: 85.4 GB

Feature: 71 GB

This release uses the same source created by Shout! Factory for their 4K UHD release, and it looks comparable. Here’s what I said about that transfer: “After years of substandard releases, City on Fire finally gets an exemplary release that looks exceptional. Flesh tones and colors look correct; image clarity, contrast, black levels, and comparison are solid; and the image always looks organic.”

Audio: 5/5 (LPCM Mono Cantonese, LPCM Mono English)

This release comes with two audio options, a LPCM mono mix in Cantonese and a LPCM mono mix in English. Although the audio, like the video, is comparable to Shout! Factory’s release, Arrow Video’s booklet lists audio restoration by Brandon Bentley. That said, both audio tracks sound excellent, and they are both their original mono tracks, instead of the shoddy remix tracks that so many previous home media releases had. Dialog always comes through clearly, everything sounds balanced, and action sequences sound robust. Included are English subtitles for the Cantonese language track and English SDH subtitles for the English language track. It should be noted that subtitles and audio can only be chosen via the audio setup menu, and they cannot be turned off while watching the main feature.

Extras:

Extras for this release include an image gallery (stills/posters/home video art), a theatrical trailer (3 minutes 31 seconds, DTS-HD mono Cantonese with removable English subtitles), an interview with film historian Kim Newman titled Burning Rivalries - The Influence of Ringo Lam on Reservoir Dogs (14 minutes 4 seconds, DTS-HD stereo English with removable English subtitles for Cantonese film clips), an interview with film historian Ric Meyers titled Some Like It Hot - The Cult of Chow Yun-fat and the Hong Kong Kinetic Action Film  (33 minutes 30 seconds, DTS-HD stereo English with removable English subtitles for Cantonese film clips), an interview with author Grady Hendrix titled Hong Kong Confidential Inside City on Fire (11 minutes 31 seconds, DTS-HD stereo English with non-removable English subtitles for Cantonese film clips), an interview with screenwriter Tommy Sham titled Burn It Down! (18 minutes 22 seconds, DTS-HD stereo Cantonese with removable English subtitles), an audio commentary with Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto, an archival audio interview with director Ringo Lam (10 minutes 49 seconds, DTS-HD stereo Cantonese with removable English subtitles), an archival interview with cinematographer Andrew Lau titled Portrait of Anger (21 minutes 41 seconds, DTS-HD stereo Cantonese with removable English subtitles), an archival interview with actor Roy Cheung titled Long Arm of the Law (21 minutes 41 seconds, DTS-HD stereo Cantonese with removable English subtitles), reversible cover art, a slipcover (limited to the first pressing), and a 32-page booklet (limited to the first pressing) with cast & crew information, an essay titled A Life of Fire: Ringo Lam and the Journey to City on Fire written by Dylan Cheung, and information about the transfer.

Summary:

Ringo Lam directed City on Fire; it was a breakout film for him as a filmmaker that firmly established his style. He’s known for Prison on Fire, School on Fire, Wild Search, Full Contact, and Burning Paradise. City on Fire has gained recognition in the U.S. since the release of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, which has a few similar elements.

An undercover cop named Ko reluctantly takes on another assignment as a favor to his mentor. Ko poses as an arms dealer, which leads to him becoming friendly with Fu, the leader of a group of jewel thieves. After gaining his trust, Fu and his boss ask Ko to participate in their next heist.

Though Ringo Lam made many crime films that are widely regarded as some of Hong Kong cinema’s best, he does not always get the acclaim he deserves because of the shadow that John Woo casts over these types of films. Like many of his contemporaries in the 1990s, he made the move to work in Hollywood; unfortunately, his films have varied quality-wise and not lived up to his Hong Kong films. The primary reason he struggled to find success in Hollywood is that the industry's system tends to dilute the unique elements that made his Hong Kong films so distinctive.

City on Fire is a film about two characters whose stories intersect; one is an undercover cop, and the other is a criminal who robs jewelry stores. When we are introduced to these two characters, Ko, the undercover cop, is working on a completely related case; he wants out because it is affecting his personal life, while Fu, the criminal, is riding high as part of a crew that has just pulled off an impressive heist. Before Ko is able to walk away, he’s drawn back in by his superior, who convinces him to infiltrate Fu’s gang.

City on Fire is a film that firmly sets its tone with a violent opening sequence where an undercover cop is exposed and knifed to death in front of a crowd of people. What set this sequence apart from similar ones made outside of Hong Kong is how they used real locations, and they rarely got permission to film there. By filmmaking this way, it adds an intensity and element of surprise that a controlled filmmaking process could never achieve. That said, when it came to filming moments like this, Ringo Lam was one of the best in Hong Kong cinema.

Although Ringo Lam gets most of the acclaim, and rightfully so, for City on Fire, one should not overlook the contributions of its two leads: Chow Yun-fat (The Killer) portrays Ko Chow, while Danny Lee (Undeclared War) portrays Fu. Ringo Lam makes an intriguing choice by casting them in roles that contrast with the characters they typically portrayed up to that point. Chow Yun-fat delivers an exceptional performance that covers a wide range of emotions, perfectly capturing his character's conflicted attitude to his job. There is a clear distinction between these two characters, and Danny Lee’s performance does a phenomenal job playing off of Chow Yun-fat. Another performance of note is Carrie Ng (Naked Killer), Hung, Ko’s frustrated girlfriend who feels like he does not invest enough into their relationship.

The narrative does a superb job building Ko and Fu’s stories before they ultimately merge and culminate with an explosive finale. The action sequences are exemplary, especially a pair of heist sequences and their subsequent aftermaths. Ringo Lam’s direction is inspired; he makes choices that his peers would not make, and they pay off in spades. Another strength of City on Fire is Teddy Robin’s (As Tears Go By) score, which features prominently a saxophone and a rendition of a Christmas staple. Ultimately, City on Fire is Ringo Lam’s masterpiece, which is only fitting since it marked the first time he was able to make a film the way he wanted to.

Arrow Video gives City on Fire its best home media presentation to date; highly recommended.

Note about the 4K screenshots: It is not possible to make Dolby Vision or HDR10 screenshots that faithfully match the experience of watching a film in motion on a TV. Instead of not having any screenshots, all of the 4K screenshots are m2ts taken with a MPC-HC player and lossless PNGs.

 

Written by Michael Den Boer