The Hong Kong new wave, a movement Tsui Hark helped spearhead, was partially known for making films about Hong Kong itself. While the HK film industry had flourished for decades, the overwhelming majority of all HK cinema was about China and the Chinese people, not Hong Kong. It wasn't until the new wave movement that HK filmmakers really started making films about their own island, and films that focused on the unique concerns of the Hongkies. In Dangerous Encounters - 1st Kind (a.k.a. Don't Play With Fire), this suppressed thematic element erupts with raw emotion and anger. It is both Tsui's intense socio-political vertical-slice of Hong Kong life, and the crosshairs with which he lines up his targets and opens fire, not stopping until the blood gushes forth.
Dangerous Encounters is punk-rock cinema through and through. Now when I say "punk-rock," I don't mean the trendy fashion; you won't find any lose hanging suspenders, towering mohawks, Doc Martins, or spiked bracelets here. When I say "punk-rock," I am talking about the bona fide ethos, the "I don't give a damn about anything or anyone" attitude embraced by the film's narrative and director. Dangerous Encounters is one of Hong Kong's most infamous films. It was the victim of government censorship, both at home and abroad, and is considered by many admirers to be one of the most nihilistic films ever made. Even though I was armed with this knowledge before watching the film, I was still shocked by how angry and nasty it was. I don't know what kind of demons haunted Tsui while making this film, but it is apparent that it was cathartic, because he didn't tackle another film as socially angst-charged and anger-filled until the mid '90s with The Blade.
The narrative is quite simple, and even though the tone is vastly different from the majority of his work, it is undeniably Tsui Hark. Many of his films find a group of stranger-protagonists unwillingly caught in the middle of a life and death struggle - they become accidental pawns in the throngs of chaos. His heroes are rarely the kind who ride into town prepared to save the day, but instead they frequently find themselves having to fight just to stay alive. And while this narrative does contain these elements, it is different still because there are no heroes to be found at all. All of the main characters in the film are living on various levels of immorality and selfishness. The shit hits the pavement when three juvenile males steal a car for a joyride, and through sheer stupidity they hit and kill a pedestrian. They then try to flee the scene, but soon find themselves at the mercy of a lone witness, a deranged young woman who blackmails them into servitude and urban terrorism.
Pearl (a name drenched in irony), the female lead, is one of the most cold-hearted, angry, and manipulative characters I have ever seen. I can't even call her an anti-hero because there is nothing even remotely heroic about her; in any other film she would be the A-number-one villain. She is evil to the core, and a product of both nature and nurture. However, Pearl is not the only immoral and misanthropic character in the film; it wallows in such devious characterizations. From the three bi-speckled weakling-nerds cum reluctant urban-terrorists, to the arms-dealing Vietnam War vets, Dangerous Encounters is a study of the foul inhabitants living in a nasty concrete jungle polluted with feelings of alienation, xenophobia, anger, and nihilism.
However, as bleak the film may be, it still exemplifies the director's unique aesthetic vision. Tsui's films are indeed full of motion and movement, and here there are two key sequences that illustrate his amazing ability to harness and capture cinematic energy. The first of these is when Pearl decides that she would like to set her boy-toys on fire. While walking home from school one day, the three boys are surprised when Pearl shows up like an angry banshee. In one flame-proof gloved-hand, she holds a fire ball, and, in the other, a bucket of gasoline. She douses the boys with the explosive-liquid and then chases them around, desperately trying to cook them alive. The other such sequence is the film's blood-drenched showdown, which is symbolically staged in a huge cemetery - where else would damned and unwanted degenerates go to stage their finale? The cemetery chase/action sequence is gorgeously filmed and represents an antithesis of action “choreography;” this is not the bullet-ballet typically associated with HK action cinema. No, this is closer to Sam Peckinpah, and Tsui uses the violence to show the depths people can sink to when they see no other choice - fatalistic to be sure.
While I whole heartedly recommend this extreme film, my recommendation comes with a caveat: this film is not for everyone and some will be disgusted by a number of sequences. A word of caution must be raised about one sequence in particular, one that will forever haunt my mind. When we first meet Pearl, in one of the most clear-cut and defining character introductions ever filmed, we learn that her anger and hatred does not discriminate against God's furry little creatures. I don't want to go into the details, but there is a scene of real animal (a mouse) cruelty, and while it clearly and expertly establishes her character, there is still no way I can come close to justifying this appalling act. I sat wide eyed and disturbed, and a little sick to my stomach while watching it.
Even beyond the scenes of cruelty and violence, there is no way a film like Dangerous Encounters would be made today - it is far too subversive; this film took balls to make. Even the bleakness and violence in films like The Proposition and Pan's Labyrinth can't compete with what is on display in Tsui's film, because as nasty as it all is, he injects a twisted sense of fun about the whole thing. I started to believe that his characters were getting a kick out of all the decadence, that even while they lay dying in their own blood and vomit, somewhere, deep inside their decrepit souls, they were laughing and enjoying the death and destruction in the name of absolutely nothing. But this is more shocking still: I started to believe that Tsui Hark himself was enjoying the carnage, like only a cinematic-punk and angry-visionary drunk with creativity could.
