DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE - New Restoration
Long difficult to see, Tsui Hark’s (A BETTER TOMORROW) DON’T PLAY WITH FIRE a.k.a. DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS OF THE FIRST KIND is one of the most controversial and violent crime films from the Hong Kong New Wave of the 1980s. After a fatal hit-and-run, three high school friends flee the crime scene. They are witnessed by Pearl, a sadistic young girl, who pursues the group and blackmails them into more crimes, with increasingly disastrous consequences. DIR/SCR Tsui Hark; SCR Szeto Cheuk-hon; PROD Fung Wing-fat. Hong Kong, 1980, 97 min. In Cantonese with English subtitles. NOT RATED (treat as R)
“Even today, the intense mix of provocative bloodshed and potent politics, a punkish call for anarchic defiance under colonial rule, remains laudably vicious.” – Robert Daniels, The New York Times
Run Time: 97 Minutes
Opening Date: Friday, September 25, 2026
Genre: Crime drama
