This leading Hong Kong action filmmaker has kept a lower profile than some of his contemporaries as far as publicity is concerned. Nevertheless, he has helmed some of the key films of the "heroic bloodshed" cycle of HK action movies. The hard-hitting heist film, "City on Fire" (1987)--best known stateside as the unacknowledged but indisputable inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's 1991 debut "Reservoir Dogs"--gave Lam his first major hit and inaugurated a series of features ("Prison on Fire" 1987; "School on Fire" 1988).Lam's films are noted for the grim realism of their violence and their
