L'Enfer des armes

I never believed in rebirth, but italian freak cinema of the 70ies lived on in a lot of Hong Kong flicks of the 80ies. If you like animals, human life or are a fan of political correctness you should NOT watch this movie. If you like explotation movies, italian cinema and have mental problems like me, GO FOR IT. It really has a good script, lot of twists, overall good acting and is very well made. What I really missed are car chases between Alfa Romeo's and BMW's, Tomas Milian, Henry Silva and a score from let's say Stelvio Cipriani, then it would be perfect, but you can't have it all. Hardcore entertainment par excellence (really).

Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind is wild. I kind of found it engaging and maybe entertaining (not sure if that's the right word) but it also might be easiest to respect/admire than enjoy in the traditional sense. It's about three wannabe terrorists who are also kind of losers, and then a more ruthless girl catches onto the stuff they're doing, and she kind of pushes the entire group to do worse things. Then things get more chaotic, they make a lot of enemies, and the level of violence/death just increases as it goes along.

It's blunt, but it does leave me feeling more than most movies that could be described as simple. There is a quality to it that makes it special, even though I didn't like all the decisions it made creatively or content-wise. It's definitely meant to unravel and feel chaotic, and looking back, that whole structure is easier to appreciate, but it did leave me wanting a bit in the moment.

It's a tricky film to talk about, and a trickier one to recommend, but it was something different and I liked it enough for that alone.

This is an interesting oddity if ever I saw one. It starts off admittedly lousily with a number of sequences that appear completely unconnected and which make little to no sense – so much so in fact that I initially was under the impression that this was a cut and splice film ala Godfrey Ho!

However, don't turn off just yet for things do pick up admirably as it goes on.

The basic story concerns three nerdy students who during a night of drunken revelry accidentally run over and kill a pedestrian. This act is witnessed by an strange and somewhat sadistic girl who's brother happens to be a cop. Following the incident the girl (who tortures mice in her spare time!) bribes the students to aid her indulge in her criminal fantasies or else she will inform the police of the fateful nights events.

Matters take a dramatic turn for the worse when the group of would be miscreants inadvertently take possession of some Japanese bank orders which are the property of some particularly sadistic American militia sorts. Added to this the Triads get wind of the scheme and want a piece of the action for themselves. The end result is pretty gruesome and riveting stuff, especially the movies climax which is handled with some not inconsiderable flair by the movies director.

Fans of shock and exploitation cinema should certainly give this a go….just don't expect a sequel anytime soon….

I love the heroine of this movie. She, a beautiful teen-age sister of a cop, is in fact a fiery, sadistic psychopath who dominates hapless (and spineless) threesome of students and forces them to participate in her reckless criminal scheme.

Even though the heroine is totally amoral, and sadistic etc., we can't but root for her because she is fearless and puts up a lone fight against..., against everything. She is motivated by dark and formless anger, and she controls (or tries to control) three students through fear and greed. This relationship between the girl and the threesome is the most interesting aspect of the film.

Their dangerous game leads to the involvement with organized crime (the triad?) and to the dire conclusion. The last twenty or so minutes of the film is truly gruesome.

The other characters in film are pretty two-dimensional --- the villains are mere killing machines, and the cop, the brother of the heroine, is also rather stereotypical loner cop. But the dangerous and out-of-control spiral of the four main characters is riveting to watch.

I can only agree with the preceding comments; this really is the most nihilistic movie I've ever seen (comparable only to Sergio Corbucci's "Il grande silenzio" in that respect) and the heroine is very likeable indeed, although the name Pearl is VERY inapt. The scene where she completely unmotivatedly throws a cat out of the window was too much even for Hong Kong's censor boards which rarely cut out a scene for being too violent. Another scene that I'll never forget was when she set the car of the 'gwailo' (those sunglasses!) on fire. The definition of recklessness and defiance of death.

Someone please release this film in PAL-format, either on VHS, VCD or DVD. I've seen it only once and I'm desperate to see it again. Please!!!