City on Fire opens with the brutal sidewalk stabbing of Wah, an undercover cop. Ko Chow (Chow Yun-fat), an undercover cop himself, disillusioned and on the verge of quitting the force, gets talked into taking Wah's place by his uncle, Inspector Lau. Posing as a gun runner, Chow infiltrates a gang of jewel robbers, intending to drop the case as soon as the guns are delivered. But, caught between the gang, his uncle, his increasingly frustrated fiancée, and the grandstanding young cop in charge of the case, Chow slips deeper and deeper into the underworld. Like many of Hong Kong's crime thrillers, it's a tale of tragically conflicting loyalties, played out with the kind of operatic inevitability that only these films can pull off with such unself-consciousness. Ringo Lam won the Hong Kong Film Award for this feverish little thriller, in which the cops are even more treacherous than the criminals. Widely recognized as one of Asia's finest actors, Chow Yun-fat is mesmerizing as the doomed hero/loser. Hong Kong's best-kept secret, he's an actor of astonishing grace and power. --Tod Booth