- Just before the robbers in City on Fire rob a jewelery store, one of them says "Let's go to work".
- The relationship between Chow (the undercover cop) and Fu (the gangster) is mirrored by that of Orange and White. [there is also a similar relationship with Chow and his supervisor/Mr. Orange and Holdaway]
- One of the gang members kills a shop girl in the jewelery shop for setting off the alarm. [not shown in RD, but it is talked about]
- There is a scene where Chow is shot by a cop and kills him (Orange is shot by a woman and kills her) while Fu is shooting cops in a car by shooting at them with two guns, when they must try and escape after their getaway car crashes.
- In the warehouse there is a Mexican standoff.
- A dying Chow tells Fu that he is a cop.
- [In Tarantino's original script, there was a scene similar to the one in COF where Chow talks to his superior and wants off the case becuase he's in too deep involving Mr. Orange/Freddy. The scene was filmed but not put in the finished movie.]
- [During the jewelery store robbery in COF, Danny Lee stabs the manager in the hand when he won't open the safe. In RD, Mr. White relates a similar way he gets managers to talk.]
...Reservoir Dogs is basically the last 30 minutes of City on Fire, stretched out, with some clever dialogue thrown in.
The suits are lifted from A Better Tomorrow II...
Tarantino has publicly acknowledged the influence of John Woo, but has casually left out the contributions of Ringo Lam. As a matter of fact, when the "homage" was exposed by Mike White's "Who Do You Think You're Fooling," MTV quoted Tarantino as saying, "He's dying to see the Hong Kong original".
I say he watched it on the playback monitor of the set of "Reservoir Dogs." But like any thief, Tarantino changes his story often:
"I loved CITY ON FIRE, I got the poster framed in my house, so it's a great movie." - Quentin Tarantino, Film Threat, Issue 18, pg. 23.
"I've got the poster right here. That's Danny Lee. Ringo Lam is like my second, after Jackie Chan, third favorite of all the Hong Kong directors." - Quentin Tarantino,The Village Voice 10/25/94 No. 43, pg. 31.
.....
I just love how at first he said he'd never seen the film but now, Ringo Lam gets part of the writing credits now after the word "lawsuit" was brought up.... well... At least Tarantino likes good directors.. John Woo, DePalma, Scorcese, Johnny To, Takeshi Kitano, etc. But hell, Eli Roth has good tastes in movies and his films suck too.