MCBASTARD'S MAUSOLEUM

DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE (1980)

2-Disc Collector's Limited Edition Blu-ray

Label: Cult Epics

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 96 Minutes 18 Seconds (Uncensored International Version), 99 Minutes 25 Seconds (Banned Chinese Version)

Audio: Cantonese 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)

Director: Tsui Hark

Cast: Lin Chen Chi, Paul Che, Che Biu Law, Lung Tin Sang, Albert Au, Lo Lieh, Bruce Baron,

Don't Play with Fire (1980) aka Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind is directed by Tsui Hark (A Better Tomorrow) is a nihilistic slice of Hong Kong crime cinema, about three teens, Ko (Che Biu Law, Ghost Hospital), Lung (Lung Tin Sang, We're Going To Eat You) and Paul (Albert Au, Liang xiao wu zhi), steal one of their parent's cars and while joyriding

are involved with a fatal hit-and-run. They flee the scene but are witnessed by a sadistic girl name d Pearl, (Lin Chen Chi, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold), who confronts

tracks them down after school and blackmails them into committing even more crimes, with her assuming the role of the leader. The film introduces Pearl who lives with her older brother, Hong Kong cop Detective Tan (Lo Lieh, Sex and Zen), who is abusive to his unruly sibling, yet it's hard to feel too sympathetic, she's cold-blooded and cruel to animals from the get-go, driving a pin into a white mouse and watching it diem, and soon after throwing her neighbor's a cat to it's death from the height of the building, impaling it on a fence post. She's soon after fired from her job at a publishing plant after arguing with another woman, dumping a bucket of ink on her head. We're just a few minutes in and we have a demented animal killer, an abusive cop, three teens who committed vehicular manslaughter - there's not a likable character in sight, everyone is bad, everything sucks, and there not a glimmer of hope to be found - so get used to it, there's no happy ending coming our way. The teens mini crime spree includes Pearl holding a tourism bus hostage with a bomb, forcing the passengers to strip down to their underwear and kicking them off the bus, and dousing the three teens with gasoline before attempting to set them on fire! Eventually she ends up stealing a package from the backseat of a scary looking foreigner, Bruce Bruce (Bruce Baron, Raiders of Atlantis), only to discover that the package contains Japanese bank notes worth millions, which they attempt to cash without success. They're unaware that the bank notes were meant to purchase a large shipment of weapons from Vietnam for a group of foreign mercenaries, lead by Nigel (Nigel Falgate), who are now out for the teen's blood to recover the bank notes. The teens initially send Paul to try to cash the bank notes at an exchange, when that fails they try to arrange a deal to exchange the bank notes with sleazy gang leader named Uncle Hark (Richard Da Silva, Once Upon a Time in Triad Society), who only offers them thirty percent of their value, and even them, he sends goons to steal the notes from the kids. The teens crime spree quickly begins to catch up to them shortly after attempting to bomb an exchange manager who gave them bad information, but they end up killing someone else instead, Paul is featured on the news as a suspect in the bombing, and the merceries are out to recover the stolen Japanese bank notes, culminating in a wildly nihilistic, down-turned and bloody finale at a cemetery on a hill that certainly really my hair back with how gleefully violent and sadistic it gets it's wild. Nothing about this flick thus far ever screamed happy ending, but the way it all pans out is gob-smacking, even now, forty-six years after it first screened. I will say that if you are sicked by animal cruelty you should know this film has it, the mouse mentioned previously is for sure really killed on-camera, the cat carcass is seemingly a puppet, but for sure someone through the cat quite a distance, I will say that for the animal cruelty Pearl perpetrated her death is a nice bit of karmic comeuppance, I appreciate that aspect of it, but just be forewarned that real animal cruelty is filmed and presented here.

Audio/Video: The Uncensored International Version of Don't Play With fire (1980) gets a region-free Blu-ray release from Cult Epics, this being the premiere of English friendly subtitled version. The source is nebulously advertised as "new 2K transfer and restoration", regardless I thought it looked quite solid, while admittedly not rising to the limits of HD perfection. The image looks terrific, a couple of speckles but otherwise blemish free, grain appears intact and not scrubbed away by aggressive DNR, and textures and fine detail in the close-ups is appreciable. It's grim and gritty looking films, lots of shadows and darkness, black levels are a bit on the milky side of things, and there's an inherent softness to the cinematography as well, some of the lower light scenarios are noisy looking. Colors fare well, muted by design, but splashes of color, especially bloodshed, have a nice vibrancy to them. I did notice what looked like frame stretching a few scenes, but that could also be some warping from the anamorphic lenses, too.

Audio comes by way of a mic of Cantonese & English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. The track is clean and generally free of distortions, the post-dubbed dialogue sounds fine, and the score credited to Siu-Lam Tang and Leun Yu, also features "licensed" music cues, notably selections from Goblin’s Dawn of the Dead, which start the film off, plus selections from Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek the Motion Picture, the Alan Parsons Project and Jean-Michel Jarre's “Oxygene (Part IV).” It's actually quite a stunning soundtrack, but the music tracks are sort of thin and tinny sounding.

Extras on disc one include an terrific Audio Commentary by Frankie Balboa and Brandon Streussnig, who get into the the director's career, the soundtrack, the cast, where this fits in among the Hong Kong New Wave cycle, and plenty more. There's also a 26-min Interview with director Tsui Hark, a 45-min Interview with actor Albert Au, 8-min Interview with screenwriter Szeto Cheuk On, plus a 23-min Interview with assistant director O Sing Pui. Disc one extras are buttoned-up with a selection of Cult Epics Trailers.

Disc two is offers two alternate versions of the film. The feature presentation presented here is the Uncensored International Version of the film running 96-minutes and change, but the original Director's Cut was deemed too subversive, what with the bomb-making teen terrorists, by the Chinese censors who demanded changes, but lucky for us, Cult Epics release includes that version, assembled using the restored elements, with the missing footage sourced from a second generation VHS from the director's personal collection. Most of the changed content revolves around the opening sequence of the teens, instead of a hit and run we get something completely different, they're amateur bomb makes and attend the screening of a film, where they randomly plant a homemade bomb in a crowded theater. This version is presented in 1080p HD with SD inserts, and uncompressed Chinese audio with optional English subtitles.

The other version is a 90-min English Dubbed Alt. Version presented in SD widescreen with lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 Dual-Mono audio, with no subtitles options. This is sourced from a SD master and looks decent for SD, but looks significantly worse that the 1080p presentation, but if you're adverse to reading subtitles, it's an option. Other extras on disc two include a 12-min Interview with director Tsui Hark, 7-min Interview with Lo Lieh, 5-min Original Theatrical Trailer, 10-min Promotional Gallery, and a 33-min Isolated Score.

The interviews are all pretty fantastic, exploring the participants time making the film, how they ended up on it, the politics of the film, the various versions, the animal death, and how and where it fits into the Hong Kong New Wave.

The 2-disc release arrives in a dual-hub black keepcase with a Reversible Wrap featuring original poster artworks, plus the first pressing also includes a Slipcase with artwork designed by the vert recently later Tony Stella. This 2-disc Collector's Limited Edition release is limited to just 3000 copies.