John Woo's Bullet in the Head

Reviewed by John Chiafos
September 27, 2006

Available by import only MPAA: R for violence, language, and drug use Review Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Tony Leung in Bullet in the Head.

If you want a real John Woo movie, you need to go back to Hong Kong . His American films just usually aren't as good. Face/Off , Paycheck (the only good Ben Affleck movie), and the film he made for BMW's The Hire series (downloadable at www.bmwfilms.com ) are all decent, but don't stand up to the ones he made in China. If you want to see a true-blue John Woo Hong Kong adrenalin rush, go with Hard Boiled , The Killer , or Bullet in the Head.

Bullet in the Head is John Woo's blood-and-bullets maxim opus--his best movie--the harrowing story of three friends torn apart by the horrors of the Vietnam War. It's truly epic, difficult to watch, over the top, yet unforgettable. The film follows three friends—Frank, Paul, and Ben—who grow up as gangsters in 1960s Hong Kong. After Paul (Chinese super-stud Tony Leung) accidentally murders a gangster on his wedding night (!), he and his two friends run to Vietnam . There, they're torn apart by love, greed, and envy. Once they return to Hong Kong , vengeance deals them a killing blow in a tragic, Shakespearean (in more ways than one) climax.

Three outstanding sequences make this film a standout: a half-hour barroom shootout reminiscent of Hard-Boiled , a prison camp sequence as good as anything in The Killing Fields , and the car-chase/stockyard shootout climax.

Though I can recommend this film to HK-action fans, it's difficult for me to recommend to everybody . It's operatic, but in all the worst ways: everybody dies, there's blood everywhere, heroes turn to villains, the guy doesn't get the girl (sorry for the spoiler). And like every great Chinese action film of its decade, it's overkill : more action scenes, more complicated shots, more people getting killed in strange ways, more slo-mo kiss-less romantic scenes, more confusing plot elements.

At the same time, it's a stinking epic , deeply felt, moving, a real tear-jerker/man-movie movie. Woo has proven to be the greatest action stylist of this generation, easily living up to his old heroes Sergio Leone ( The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) and Jean-Pierre Melville ( Le Circle Rouge ). But unlike his compatriots, he doesn't know when to stop.

So it's hard to judge this film. So I'm giving it a Medium Evo Factor. HK action fans would probably rate it High.

Also, as a Christian… how do I take this film? John Woo professes to be a Christian. I don't know what to do about that. There's plenty of R-rated stuff in this flick, enough that I wouldn't see it again—not so much for the violence as the language and depressing worldview. On the flip side of that coin, they staged plenty of Shakespearean tragedies at the Christian University I went to, and this is… not comparable, but similar. It's not Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare's Kill Bill ), but it's pretty violent. Should Christians watch this flick? My answer is to approach it clinically, remembering that Woo's unique worldview is what makes him an artist, and not to watch it unless you feel compelled to study the art of film. You see the film, study it, but don't believe it. That's my conclusion as a Christian filmmaker—the same reason Christians can study Nietsche.

PS: this film was available on DVD for a short time, but is now import only. I got a Chinese version of the film from Netflix. You might be able to find a dubbed VHS version online, though.

More Screencaps (click image to enlarge) :