Hyperviolent nihilism in the urban sprawl of Hong Kong might be my new favourite niche subgenre of film.
As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be in an organised crime syndicate. I kept getting rejected at try-outs so I turned to film instead to live out my desires. I love movies about organised crime syndicates, and I especially love when they focus on people just on the outskirts of these organisations, either rising through the ranks or going up against them. Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind is of the latter category, following three male students with a penchant for wreaking havoc getting involved with a woman who is, to put it bluntly, fucking insane. She's a sadomasochist who loves abusing and killing animals and lashing out at anyone who looks at her the wrong way. She encourages the raucous youth to commit genuine terrorist attacks such as firebombing a theatre and commandeering a bus, leaving the passengers naked and afraid and the driver with a bomb in his mouth. They soon come into some money during an in-fight with the group (she covers them in gasoline and tries to light them on fire but in the end she gets hit by a car, leading the group to attack the passenger and making off with some cash), embroiling them with the local Triad branch. And if you thought that was mad, wait till you see when it REALLY spirals out of control!!!
It's anarchic, brutal, claustrophobic, gleefully perverse, rife with gallows humour, unflinchingly raw, a coming-of-age nightmare AND, if you can stomach it, one of the all-time great thrillers where no-one emerges unscathed. It'll make you think the world truly is a horrible place, and I wouldn't ask for anything else.
SIDE NOTE: There's a white guy in this that looks like James Caan and Burt Reynolds morphed together that I'm 90% sure is dubbed over (OR white boy SHOCKS staff by speaking perfect Chinese, I don't know).
SIDE NOTE II: If there's ever a local screening of this, I don't know if I'd go to it because I don't wanna meet the kinds of people who'd see this in a public setting.
Hyperviolent nihilism in the urban sprawl of Hong Kong might be my new favourite niche subgenre of film.
As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be in an organised crime syndicate. I kept getting rejected at try-outs so I turned to film instead to live out my desires. I love movies about organised crime syndicates, and I especially love when they focus on people just on the outskirts of these organisations, either rising through the ranks or going up against them. Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind is of the latter category, following three male students with a penchant for wreaking havoc getting involved with a woman who is, to put it bluntly, fucking insane. She's a sadomasochist who loves abusing and killing animals and lashing out at anyone who looks at her the wrong way. She encourages the raucous youth to commit genuine terrorist attacks such as firebombing a theatre and commandeering a bus, leaving the passengers naked and afraid and the driver with a bomb in his mouth. They soon come into some money during an in-fight with the group (she covers them in gasoline and tries to light them on fire but in the end she gets hit by a car, leading the group to attack the passenger and making off with some cash), embroiling them with the local Triad branch. And if you thought that was mad, wait till you see when it REALLY spirals out of control!!!
It's anarchic, brutal, claustrophobic, gleefully perverse, rife with gallows humour, unflinchingly raw, a coming-of-age nightmare AND, if you can stomach it, one of the all-time great thrillers where no-one emerges unscathed. It'll make you think the world truly is a horrible place, and I wouldn't ask for anything else.
SIDE NOTE: There's a white guy in this that looks like James Caan and Burt Reynolds morphed together that I'm 90% sure is dubbed over (OR white boy SHOCKS staff by speaking perfect Chinese, I don't know).
SIDE NOTE II: If there's ever a local screening of this, I don't know if I'd go to it because I don't wanna meet the kinds of people who'd see this in a public setting.
