Due to City of Desire having a character played by Sandra Ng named "Sister Thirteen", it's been incorrectly regarded by some as being part of the Young and Dangerous series. Unlike the fairly fluffy popcorn look at young Triad life in Hong Kong that were the Y&D movies, this film is actually a pretty serious drama about the "leisure" (sex and gambling) industry in Macao and the people it affects.

The movie starts with Sister Thirteen (or simply Sandra as the subtitles sometimes call her) returning to Macao after living in Canada for ten years to take over her father's chain of hostess clubs. For those of you that don't know, hostess clubs are usually thinly-veiled brothels. The clubs are allowed to stay in business due to the co-operation of the police (led by Blacky Ko) who seem content to leave things be, as long as the club's girls have legal paperwork. Sandra doesn't feel right making a living exploiting women, and things become more complicated when she runs into a childhood friend named Pepper (Josie Ho), who has taken to prosititution in order to pay her gambling debts.

This plot could have been the basis for a really good socio-economic exploration of the seedier side of nightlife in Macao, and for a lot of its' running time, City of Desire does handle things well. The large cast, which also includes Alex Fong as Sandra's ex-boyfriend and Law Kar-Ying as a club manager, universally do a fine job. And with Marco Mak handling the editing and Lincoln Lo delivering the music, City of Desire looks and sounds great as well.

However, the film falls deep into a preachy tone at times... literally. Anthony Wong plays a priest who not-so-subtly is supposed to represent the conscience of the "real" Macao. When he tells Sandra the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, it's delivered with all the gentleness of a root canal. It's bad to use women for sex and gamble away all your money -- we get it. There's no reason to hammer the point of your film to the viewer like that. It just comes off as amateurish and a bit insulting.

When you combine that with a melodramatic ending that almost instills chuckles instead of the real emotions it should have, City of Desire ends up feeling like an exercise that had its' heart in the right place, but ultimately fails at its' task. It's certainly not a bad movie by any means, especially compared to some of Hong Kong's other output around this time -- it's just the fact that it felt like it could have been so much more that makes City of Desire a disappointment.

RATING: 6