Few films have left as influential of a legacy on their country of origin as the 2002 Brazilian classic City of God. Co-directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, the epic crime drama wasn’t intended to be a zeitgeist-defining smash hit. Earlier this year, Meirelles reflected on the film’s humble origins — a low-budget, self-financed passion project populated with unknown actors and steered by an inexperienced crew. “It was really a bunch of friends,” he said, “… and we were doing the film because we liked the story.”
That story, adapted from the semi-autobiographical 1997 novel of the same name by Paulo Lins, immersed domestic and international viewers alike into the underrepresented world of favela life. Upon its release, City of God became the best performing film at the Brazilian box office in three decades, and it subsequently spurred a major increase in film productions within the country, particularly within other favela communities. It’s depiction of entrenched poverty, the ramifications of organized crime, and systemic inequality — elevated through vertiginously styled editing and the connection of its performers to the neighborhood in question — produced pathos for an ignored strata of people, as well as shock and awe at the gritty, harrowing nature of their circumstances. It stands as an unsparing testament to a rich milieu: uncovering joy amidst a consistent suffering, layering a tender beauty within a hardscrabble ugliness, locating a hopeful light in a shadowy sea of despair.
City of God: The Fight Rages On, the TV series directed by Aly Muritiba and now streaming on Max, is the latest, but not the first, installment of the extended City of God franchise. Later in 2002, Lund and Meirelles’ follow-up TV show City of Men premiered in Brazil, a spin-off dramedy that softened the film’s rougher edges and featured actors Douglas Silva (who played Li’l Dice) and Darlan Cunha (who played Steak n’ Fries) in new starring roles. That series then received its own, darker film adaptation in 2007. But while these projects merely share thematic DNA with City of God, The Fight Rages On is a direct sequel set 20 years after the end of the film. Old faces, including Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), Barbantinho (Edson Oliveira), and Berenice (Roberta Rodrigues), return while new faces enter the scene. The series, then, is positioned to be judged based on its ability to build rather than siphon off its predecessor, as well as its fidelity to it.
In 2024, the lead character of City of God, Rocket — now going by his born name, Wilson — is a renowned newspaper photographer, the bombshell photo he captured at the end of the first film having propelled his career. He no longer lives in the favela, though still occasionally visits friends and family when he’s not snapping pictures of street-rattling shootouts for the front page. An adult Bradock (Thiago Martins), a member of the violent, delinquent group of kids called the Runts in the 2004 film, has been released from jail and seeks to fully reclaim the territory he controlled before going behind bars. New character Genivaldo Curió (Marcos Palmeira) has been the don of the favela ever since the Runts created a power vacuum, but he rejects Bradock upon his return, inciting a power struggle that plunges the community into violence.
The primary function of Episode One, then, is to set the table. Reintroducing the legacy characters, providing new principal and supporting characters enough narrative space to establish themselves, catching the viewers up on the city and country’s sociopolitical evolution — there’s a dizzying amount of information to tackle. So as if to orient the viewer in this updated state of play, the episode is also heavy on allusions to the film. The opening reproduces the film opening’s hectic montage to a tee. Clips from the film play like archival footage during some of the recap. There’s a soccer scene where the straight-laced and crooked members of the community come together, while elsewhere Curió’s daughter celebrates her 15th birthday in a party scene visually reminiscent of Benny’s going-away gathering. And the first thing Bradock does as a free man is to hit the beach and jump into the water, calling to mind the seaside scenes where a younger Rocket would photograph his friends. All the mirroring and referencing draws from the film’s greatest hits and most iconic aesthetics in a bid to both essentialize this next chapter of the story for returning viewers and to acquaint new ones with the lore and brand. But the blink-and-you-miss-it velocity of the episode as it jumps from one faction or factoid to the next still can’t mask how sluggish it can feel, its forebearer’s legacy weighing it down. Narratively speaking, the aperture starts out far too wide, offering glimpses at everyone and everything, and viewers are left waiting for the storytelling to zoom in and clarify where we could be heading.
Come Episode Two and dynamics of the turf war begin to crystallize, as do hints about what may end up distinguishing this series from what came before. A Spanish investigative reporter, Lígia (Eli Ferreira), enters the favela on a dangerous assignment. Lígia’s arrival, in a sense, encapsulates these several key points of difference. First is the rising agency of the female characters. City of God’s cast is male-dominated, with the women who appear serving to texture a setting or embody a male character’s drives and — typically sexual — desires. Now, several women within the favela are soft power brokers in their own right: Berenice and Cinthia (Sabrina Rosa) overcoming personal trauma and fashioning themselves into local moral authorities; Bradock’s girlfriend, Jerusa (Andréia Horta), a Lady Macbeth-femme fatale hybrid goading her man to seek greater power knowing she’ll benefit; and even Leka (Leullem de Castro), a young rapper and Wilson’s estranged daughter who takes him to task for his faint-heartedness. Episode Two reflects a shift that feels like a necessary correction so that this story feels fresh for a new generation.
Another shift is the TV show’s commitment to ensemble storytelling. For all the colorful characters that steal the screen in City of God, they really exist to flesh out the world that protagonist Rocket and villain deuteragonist Li’l Zé (a blood-chilling turn here from Leandro Firmino as the adult Li’l Dice) aim to survive and dominate, respectively. Comparatively, Wilson resides in the backdrop of these first two episodes, with multiple characters on both sides of the law driving the human drama and crime genre thrills. Barbantinho is seeking change as a political figure. Cinthia’s son, Delano, teaches martial arts and pushes the youth to make the right choices. PQD juggles his love for Berenice with his desire for peace in the streets by any means necessary. Now the writers are working with numerous points of entry to more holistically depict a community, held together and held back by a web of complex relationships and grudges. As a result, the favela doesn’t come off as the hellish carnival of wanton violence some felt the film presented to artistic — and exploitative — effect, but instead as a living, breathing place desperately trying to extricate itself from a self-destructive cycle. “Now it’s time for Rio to see the other side of the slum,” one character says. So far, the series seems interested in following through.
Lígia’s task is to dig into the favela’s militia forces. Under the name Shield Le Cocq, these militia — former law enforcement officers turned death squad operatives — exterminate any criminal element they come across and control the favela’s infrastructure as a cartel. City of God primarily located its evil in the reverberating predations of the increasingly brutal narco-traffickers while subtly framing these outlaws as products of their environment. Even in these early stages, the show suggests its focus will be more on the havoc the police, paramilitary, and the political system wreak, these institutions incentivized to perpetuate the circumstances that make a criminal life appealing to the wayward few in the first place. A collision course between the fragmented community and its greater-scope antagonists looks to be brewing, and any successful resistance requires unity within its ranks before doing battle. Simultaneously pulling from a proven playbook and playing new cards, The Fight Rages On walks a tightrope between retread and reimagining. Regardless, there’ll be plenty of blood, bullets, and bodies along the way.
DIRECTOR: Bruno Costa & Aly Muritiba; CAST: Alexandre Rodrigues, Andrea Horta, Thiago Martins, Roberta Rodrigues; DISTRIBUTOR: Max; STREAMING: August 25; RUNTIME: 6 hr.
