Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind 1980

Three thrill-seeking youths—Paul, Lung, and Ah Kao—think they can pull off a reckless stunt by building a wristwatch–timed bomb and detonating it inside a cinema, a prank that thankfully leaves no one dead but rattles a city that already knows it can be brutal.

Wan-Shu, a girl who spends her days torturing animals, happens to witness the theater scene and begins tailing the trio. She doesn’t betray them to the police at first, even after she’s fired from a printing job for pouring ink on a coworker in the heat of an argument. Her confrontation with her older brother Tan, the police officer assigned to the bombing case, turns from sibling friction into a dangerous alliance of manipulation and fear, and she vindictively impales a cat on a fence post in a moment of spite.

Wan-Shu pushes her way into the boys’ circle by threatening to expose them, and she makes them discard a mouse she has tortured. In return, she dares them to plant a bomb in a public restroom, which she carries out without hesitation, showing how fearless—or reckless—she can be. When the trio tries to shake her off, Wan-Shu escalates by planting another bomb, warning that the next one will be at their own front door to ensure the police pay attention.

Now firmly in control, she coaxes the boys into aiding a hijacking of a bus full of tourists leaving an airport. The plan goes awry when the door closes with Wan-Shu still on board, forcing her to threaten the guide and the passengers into stripping to their underwear before dumping them at a construction site. She then turns on her new accomplices, pouring gasoline on them and triggering a tense chase as they fend off her attempts to burn them with a burning shirt. The boys bolt, but Wan-Shu manages to seize a package of money orders from a foreign driver’s car, only to drop a written contract in an alley as she escapes notice. The driver, a gun runner named Bruce, is later killed by his boss, Nigel, for exposing their operation.

Meanwhile, Paul tries to exchange one of the money orders at a bank, but fear overtakes him and he bolts from the director’s office after the teller takes the note. The youths threaten an exchange manager and learn they’ve been given a fake address, then plant a bomb under the manager’s car, killing only his bodyguard. Based on survivors’ testimonies, investigators connect the bombing to Paul’s earlier bank attempt, widening the net around the trio.

Wan-Shu, ever the opportunist, brokers a deal with Uncle Hark, a local gang leader who runs a club and serves as their ally in the underworld. Hark, with his gang, guides Wan-Shu and Ko to a banker who agrees to convert 20 money orders into cash for 30% of the take; in return, Hark’s crew robs the youths of their money. A desperate chase erupts in a parking garage when Lung is trapped by the gang, and the money is tossed around like fuel for the fire. The dispute between Wan-Shu and Lung spikes into a full-blown confrontation as bombs go off and the money is scattered; the plan breaks down and Wan-Shu finds herself abandoned again.

Back at their apartment, Tan arrives and beats Hark, then Wan-Shu refuses to press charges. The next round of violence spills back into the club, where Hark’s gang recovers the money Wan-Shu’s group had recovered. A drunken foreigner spots a money order and informs Nigel, whose gang tortures Hark to force him to reveal Wan-Shu’s whereabouts. They converge on her home, but Tan returns just in time to lead a wild chase, and Nigel’s men close in.

Wan-Shu’s fate is sealed when Nigel’s gang abducts her; in the struggle, she falls and is impaled through her head on a fence post—the same fate she had inflicted on the cat earlier in the story. The police later discover bullets lodged in the wall and uncover the money orders hidden under the mouse cage, prompting the chief to remove Tan from the case.

As Paul’s face appears on television in connection with the bombings, the three boys flee to a cemetery crowded with graves, contemplating suicide by drinking Dettol. Paul and Lung spit it out, but Ko swallows, forcing Paul to hurry to a shop for milk to dilute the poison and draw attention to his whereabouts at the cemetery. In the city, Tan confronts two Mormon missionaries by mistake and is pulled off duty for a few days. A milk-seller later calls to say she saw Paul at the cemetery, bolstering the pursuit.

Tan tracks down Lung and Paul in the graveyard, cuffing Lung to a post and chasing Paul through the tombstones. Lung is killed by a gang member who is himself shot and killed by a different enemy, while Paul is wounded when another fighter strikes. Ko steals a gun from the ground and kills Nigel’s remaining man, and Tan seizes a machine gun and ends Nigel’s rein of terror. Ko finally wields the machine gun in the cemetery as a montage of photographs from the 1967 Hong Kong riots plays on screen, and the film closes with a flashback to one of the trio’s earlier, simpler pranks—an image of red paint splashed onto a pedestrian—a stark reminder of how far their mischief has spiraled.