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Unsubtle symbolism |
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Don't Play With Fire is extreme all the way and one of the drawbacks to this approach is that the film is rarely subtle in its symbolism. Paul's family is a caricature of wealth, all big-screen TVs, tuxedos and classical music. A sign bluntly reads WAY OUT, the film's 'big fish swallows little fish' theme is shown by a mouse being killed at the opening, a cat killed shortly after, and footage of the human deaths in the 1967 colonial riots at the end. If Tsui's deliberate artlessness in this regard recalls Sam Fuller, it also leads to some lapses in judgement, such as the unforgivable (real) death of the mouse, which cannot be excused, but also has to be seen in the context of the international cinema of the 1970s, where animals were not treated with the precautions and respect of today's films. |
Payback time! |
What saves Don't Play With Fire from devolving into tit-for-tat sadism is Tsui's innate knack for the absurd, and his setting of the violence within a wider canvas, in which inflicting harm on others is part of everyday life. If much of the parallels drawn between events in the film verge on the schematic (or even didactic), some of Tsui's juxtapositions are just eccentric, such as rhyming the intermittently bespectacled teens with the vets, who seems to wear sunglasses permanently. Tsui frequently cuts away from the main action to focus on everyday citizens, a rogues' gallery of old women, arguing neighbours and sarcastic labourers, forming a sort of bemused Greek chorus to the narrative, allowing Tsui to step back for a more objective look at the frenzied tapestry unfolding.
Tsui has never gotten Don't Play With Fire out of his system. His 1987 production The Big Heat reworks some of the earlier film's gory demises and concrete-and-iron look, albeit to more conventional effect. The Blade (1995) is basically Don't Play With Fire in swordplay drag, with psychosexual bandits and a flying assassin replacing the triad gangs and veterans, and a satisfying resolution for this film's equivalent of Pearl. With Time and Tide Tsui returned to the entropy and petty crimes of modern HK youth, but in his mellow middle age, allows his young characters a shot at redemption denied them in earlier films. |
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As exciting as they are in their own right, none of them can top Don't Play With Fire, which decades later is still as provocative as the day it came out, still liable to upset and offend audiences caught unawares. Pearl would be proud.
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Run, Kids, Run! |
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