Don’t Play with Fire Blu-ray Review (Cult Epics)

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Tsui Hark’s 1980 film Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind, referred to on this release and internationally as Don’t Play with Fire, had an interesting release. The film’s subject matter primarily deals with youth violence in Hong Kong based around real examples of criminality occurring at the time; in Hark’s initial screenplay and filmed sequences, the plot revolved around the film’s child protagonists Wan-Shu (Lin Chen-Shi), Ah Kao (Paul Che Biu0-Law), Paul (Albert Au Shui-Keung), and Loong (Lung Tin-Sang) crafting bombs and planting them around the city. But due to Chinese censorship, these scenes were removed from its theatrical release, forcing Hark to perform reshoots that changed this major plot element into a more generic version involving arms dealer mercenaries and reframing the inciting sequence of events into more of an accident than an intentional malicious act. Ultimately, this results in an overall change to the structure of the film that impacts the story for nearly half of the runtime before a turn of events finds the children trying to cash Japanese bank notes and being pursued by the mercenary bad guys. Interestingly, this also inevitably affects the overall criticism of Hark’s vision, and so it’s important to set up that distinction at the outset of this review.

Since the international/theatrical cut is the only version that has been readily available for viewing, that’s the one that we’ll focus on primarily. Because of the revisions, Don’t Play with Fire‘s early moments tend to be a bit jarring; there’s a bit of a filler scene where one of the mercenaries’ known accomplices is targeted and murdered, setting in motion the police investigation involving Wan-Shu’s brother Tan (Lo Lieh). The inclusion of this detective story doesn’t meld well with development of the film’s children, and unfortunately this tends to take some focus off of the main throughline of the film’s themes – namely, youths experimenting with trouble and getting caught up in something much bigger and more dangerous than they anticipated.

Still, things eventually even out after a scattered first act, and Hark presents some truly shocking moments. Don’t Play with Fire doesn’t shy away from brutality despite its required cuts, and showcases a number of particularly violent acts perpetrated against the child cast along with animals. This makes the film rather compelling, because it’s never clear exactly where Hark will go – and, in truth, the film presents an absolutely stunning shocker at the end of its second act. The conclusion, too, manages to feel exceptionally visceral in its presentation of adolescent criminality that results in a bleak ending.

With that said, Don’t Play with Fire – the theatrical version – is still kind of a mess because of its edits, and the premise doesn’t work well when it attempts to minimize the protagonists’ involvement. The change to the inciting event also negates the original film title and its opening title card, all having to do with explosives. Hark’s original vision, here labelled the Chinese banned version or sometimes referred to as the director’s cut, is easily the better film as a whole – it’s better paced, less prone to chaotic tonal shifts, and more impactful giving its children more responsibility. Still, regardless of the version, Hark’s violent excursion is well worth a watch and precedes some of his more popular output like A Better Tomorrow or Once Upon a Time in China.

Blu-ray

Cult Epics’ Blu-ray collects all versions of Don’t Play with Fire across two discs. On the first disc, they present the main theatrical, or international, version of the film, featuring a new 2K transfer of the film. There’s not too much information about the source of the scan, but the overall results are quite good. The film features a medium-bodied grain that consistently delivers excellent detail and textures. Interestingly, there is some notable damage in the top left corner that seems to indicate whatever source was used for particular reels had some burns or damage. However, this isn’t all that noticeable and the rest of the film looks quite good. Color grading remains consistent, though darker sequences can lose some detail in particularly black areas.

Disc 2 holds the banned Chinese cut, sometimes referred to as the director’s cut, and this is a combination of the new 2K restoration as well as SD inserts from a VHS version containing the deleted scenes. The VHS sequences are particularly rough due to the presence of burnt-in subtitles that have been blurred for this version and replaced with newly translated ones for this release; however, it’s likely the best – and only – way anyone will be able to see the original intended version of the movie since any masters have been destroyed. Also included on disc 2 is an alternate English dubbed version, presented for completionist’s sake in SD.

Audio on both cuts is a DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo Cantonese track which sounds remarkably good, and even preserves much of the dialogue volume from the SD VHS scenes. Interestingly, this film “borrows” some Goblin cuts for its soundtrack, which sound clean here. English subtitles are included, with translations included for the VHS inserts.

Most of the bonus features are included on the first Blu-ray disc. A new audio commentary from Frankie Balboa and Brandon Streussnig accompanies the theatrical cut; Balboa tends to bring a more specialized knowledge about Hong Kong cinema and its various societal issues during the film’s time period, whereas Streussnig focuses on the more contextual about cast and crew. However, both hone in on the film’s themes of distressed youth in Hong Kong in the ’80s, particularly the feeling of complete nihilism that plagued young communities and the difficulties Hong Kong faced economically that led to the ideas in Don’t Play with Fire.

The commentary is essentially the only new offering on this release. The rest of the interviews on the theatrical cut are ported from a 2024 French release by Spectrum, including interviews with Tsui Hark, Paul Che, Albert Au, screenwriter Szeto Cheuk On, and assistant director O Sing Pui – these add nearly 3 hours of additional content which tend to be segmented by question cards posed to the interviewee. On the second disc, the aforementioned English export cut is included in SD, as well as older interviews with Tsui Hark and Lo Lieh, an isolated score track, gallery, theatrical trailer, and other Cult Epics release trailers.

For packaging, this release gets a new slipcase design by Tony Stella and reversible cover artwork.

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