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OVER THE EDGE, Tsui Hark's Don't Play With Fire
Mise-en-scene & Humor & Casting 1/1 - Page 3
Info
Author(s) : Chris Vaillancourt
Date : 1/6/2002
Type(s) : Review
 
 Intext Links  
People :
Tony Ching Siu Tung
Lau Kar Leung
Lin Chen Chi
Lo Lieh
John Sham Kein
John Woo
Movies :
Cleopatra Jones And The Casino Of Gold
Dangerous Encounter - 1st Kind
Spiritual Boxer
Companies :
Shaw Brothers
Lexic :
New Wave
 
< Previous
Page 2 : Startling twist of the plot
 
Next >
Page 4 : Unsubtle symbolism
 
 Notes  
Sources:
Tony Rayns quote in Sight & Sound, UK.
"The Big Heat" by Frederic Bonnaud, Les Inrockuptibles, France, no. 98, pg.38


Mise-en-scene
The mise-en-scene of Don't Play With Fire is among Tsui's freshest, despite lacking the beauty and nuances of his later films. Tsui directs in the most abrasive manner possible, all darting camera movements, looming Leone-style close-ups, titled angles and skewed overhead shots, zooming in on disgusting details. Characters are constantly jumping from the edges of the frame, accompanied by a pilfered soundtrack of Goblin, synth-pop, Jean-Michel Jarre, funk guitar and stock horror movie music. While Tsui clings to a cheap, pockmarked visual aesthetic, he pulls off some shots that are close to lyrical: a boy lying on a football post, filmed from below so he seems to be floating against the sky; the quartet brooding on a rocky shoreline, Pearl enveloped in golden sunlight as she berates the boys. The final 20-minute showdown is a marvel of action filmmaking on a low-budget, Ching Siu-tung's choreography every bit as exciting (and a lot more economical and upsetting) as his work with John Woo.

 
Humor
Humor is the most underrated aspect of Don't Play With Fire, with most commentators too overpowered by the violence and hopeless feelings contained within to acknowledge the film's sardonic comedy. Much of the humor comes simply from the characters, always on edge, spewing insults and threats, an inch away from pounding each other to a pulp. The dialogue is barbed and hilarious: when a social worker asks Pearl what she plans to do for the afternoon, the straight-faced response is "I'm going to kill something". Tsui's is a cinema of excess: it's not enough for Lo Lieh to throw up, he has to puke right on his sister! Certain scenes verge on neurotic slapstick, as when Pearl douses the boys in kerosene and tries to set them on fire, the foursome tossing a blazing pile of rags back and forth and falling all over the place with a freneticism that would do Laurel and Hardy proud.
 

Lo Lieh gets mental

Casting
The more subtle comedic bits come from Tsui's unique casting decisions. Lo Lieh plays Pearl's cop brother, the closest the film has to a moral center. The only star in the film, Tsui cast Lo Lieh in a role that was a far cry from his early days as the hero of Shaw Bros. pictures, or his later roles as a villain. His cop is a well-intentioned but hopelessly out of his depth goof, clad in a succession of increasingly tacky Hawaiian shirts. By having the head of the police be played by John Shum and the useless police force by various New Wave directors, and showing up himself early on as a toilet attendant, Tsui adds an unexpected level of self-criticism (Tsui's complaints about the New Wave and his unhappy opinions of his own films well-documented).

 
Pearl, a ball of negative energy
Still, the film's greatest role belongs to Lin Chen-chi, without whom the film would not have the same punch. A talented Shaw Bros. supporting player with credits including Lau Kar-Leung's Spiritual Boxer and the American action film Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, the Taiwan-born Lin Chen-chi (also known as Lim Ching-Chi, her real name Lam Jan Kei) is the corroded heart of Don't Play With Fire. Her Pearl is without fear, stoically trampling over everyone to achieve her goals. With her bobbed hair and barrettes, large, intense eyes, lips curled into a smirk, and blue high top sneakers, Pearl is one of the most unusual teenage females in cinema. Likeable in spite of herself, Pearl is played by Lin as a coiled ball of negative energy, prone to burst into gesticulating fits of anger which Tsui captures in close-up. Pearl is both a figure of fear and comedy, her shameless treatment of the boys and smart-ass talk eliciting both unease and amusement. A lot of the humor comes from how her best criminal plans go almost cosmically awry, to the point where she is the embodiment of the Rolling Stones lyric "Nuthin' I do don't seem to work, it only seems to make matters worse" [in 19th Nervous Breakdown].

Tony Rayns once described Don't Play With Fire as "a daydream of urban violence," and that daydream is not just Tsui's, but Pearl's as well. While her intentions at the beginning appear to be simply to vent anger by torturing the boys, she actually hopes to turn their ragtag group into a sort of dysfunctional family. A revolutionary dreamer, Pearl actually exhibits concern for the boys as the film progresses, wanting them to escape with her to Canada (!), willing to share the money with them. For all of its dismemberment, shootings and torture, the most emotionally devastating moments come from Pearl's final confrontations with the boys and Lo Lieh. "We were supposed to be a team," she sadly bleats as their group breaks up amidst recriminations and violence. Her terror as the triad gang attacks her, or the sorrow as Lo Lieh beats her, are the film's most unpleasant images. It is to the credit of Tsui and Lin that they reveal her vulnerability and essential loneliness throughout the film (note how she watches children playing with a subtle wistfulness) without ever turning her into a cliché or glossing over her cruelty. The greatest flaw of Don't Play With Fire is that Pearl is killed too early, just when she is about to show new depths to her character. While it adds to the growing tension (if Tsui can kill off the heroine, what will he do to the rest of the cast?) Pearl's loss leaves an emotional void in the film and feels like a cheat.
 

Pearl, Queen of the gang
 
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