Thanks to the rapid development of television, young directors in the late 1970s in Hong Kong had an opportunity to make their names quickly and then head into the film world. Tsui Hark – who was born sixty years ago as Tsui Man-Kong in French Indochina, and had learnt the craft of film in his twenties in the United States and then made a successful series for a Hong Kong TV station – presented with Dangerous Encounters: 1st Kind (1980) one of the first examples of punk rock cinema. It is both a carefree flinging and also a venomous kick in the shins for the established order. A group of kids tries to stay on its feet through all kinds of violent adventures in the urban jungle, while they show the most nihilistic side of their characters.
In the 1990s, Tsui Hark also emerged as a producer and broke through with a mass Western audience with the Once Upon a Time in China films and two Jean-Claude van Damme vehicles.
Film details
- Country of production
- Hong Kong
- Year
- 1980
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2010
- Length
- 96'
- Medium/Format
- 35mm
