City of God was a film released in 2002. It was nominated for four Academy Awards but didn’t win any. Like a lot of great films, it stood the test of time as one of the best foreign films of all time. Twenty-two years later not much has changed. City of God: The Fight Rages On depicts the residents that have survived the original film, of this part of Sao Paulo Brazil. 

The story picks up with Wilson aka Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) running around taking pictures for the local newspaper he works for. Also, Braddock (Thiago Matines) who has been in prison for a stretch gets out and is met by his woman Jerusa (Andrea Horta). She convinced him he needed to get his territory back, so he confronted Curio (Marcos Palmeira) who had had peace in the slum for many years. This causes a new war over the ghetto. Where you know who is caught in the middle because of where he lives and his job as a journalist?

City of God had a huge cast of characters and many of them return for this series all grown up., Berenice (Roberta Rodrigues) who was a big part of the crime world when she was younger, but now she wants to stay out of it, Touro (Wayne LeGette) who was a corrupt cop is now a corrupt politician, Marcelo, Ligia, Ocimar, and Batbintingho (Edsen Oliveira) who is a go-between the two feuding factions. This cast is amazing, but it’s hard to keep track of everybody even though most of them were in the film. They all bring the same level of intensity and acting prowess they brought to the movie back in 2001.

In the original film, there were a couple of technical things that helped make this film stand out amongst the best foreign films of all time. This series follows suit. The first is the editing. This show has incredible editing in it. With all of these characters, they have to cut between them all and the showrunners and directors do an exceptional job with this. The second is the information that is shared on screen as the names of characters and so forth as well as the subtitles which are big. That makes it easier to read them and having the names on screen makes it easier to follow along with the story. 

This world is like nothing I’ve seen on screen before. Sure I’ve seen gangs fighting and so forth and troubled teens coming of age, but City of God was the first time I had seen anything like this before. Being reminded of how violent and dangerous this world is. Everybody is looking to make a name for themselves in a city like this one where it’s hard for everybody. Twenty-two years later not much has changed. You think you got it bad in your city you just don’t know what it’s like in some place like Rio De Janeiro,  Brazil.

One of the main things that saved Rocket/Wilson is his ability as a photo-journalist. He seems to be able to be in the right place at the right time to get the money shot, as they say. All these years later he is still endangering himself and his family with the things he does for journalism. That is a dedicated journalist and photographer.  Sometimes his loyalty to his friends, and job comes into play, but he always makes the right decision in the end. I for one wouldn’t want to be in his situation that’s for sure. This series does a great job of dictating his dilemma. 

City of God: The Fight Rages On is a story that deals with a similar situation the original film dealt with twenty-two years later. It shows that this world hasn’t changed much in that time. A lot of the characters have different motivations,  but when things start to get crazy again they revert to the way they were in the past. Things change, but people don’t most of the time. The technical aspects are great once again and the showrunners capture what was great about the film all those years ago once again in this new show.

2/6 Episodes Reviewed Streaming On Max August 25th

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen