Heartwarming / City of Life and Death

• The depressing tone in the rest of movie makes this a nice little moment: when Kadokawa visits the jaded prostitute Yuriko and gives New Year's presents to her. She expects him to just screw her and leave, when he starts pulling out gifts from his bag. Sake, candy, chocolate cake...
• The soldier accompanying Kadokawa at the end of the movie doesn't protest the order to free the two prisoners they were supposed to execute nor he seems surprised by it; as he's dismissed, he bows profusely and thanks Kadokawa, like being ordered for once to spare lives rather than kill lifted a weight off him.