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Bullet in the Head
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List Price: $49.95
Our Price: $49.70
Your Save: $ 0.25 ( 1% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
Starring: Jacky Cheung, Chung Lam, Shek Yin Lau, Waise Lee, Tony Leung Chiu Wai
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9786305120384
Format: Color
ISBN: 6305120382
Label: Image Entertainment
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Publisher: Image Entertainment
Region Code: 0
Release Date: 1998-09-29
Running Time: 126
Studio: Image Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: 1990
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Editorial Reviews:
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The 1990 film Bullet in the Head engages at every turn. At once a political epic, a story about childhood friends and loyalty, as well as a tale of corruption and war, John Woo's action-packed face-off contrasts '60s idealism--the Beatles and Elvis--against the shifting tide in the East. It's plain that Woo has pulled his trio of heroes straight from Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America as well as Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter, but there are bits of Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause tossed in for good measure. The old Chinese way of life is fading in the face of the emergent Vietnam War and Chairman Mao's Red Army, and Hong Kong struggles under archaic British rule. Three friends--Ben (Tony Leung), Frank (Jacky Cheung), and Paul (Waise Lee)--rub up against gang warfare, capitalism, and opportunism in a life that is strongly tinged by Western culture. Ben falls in love and wants to marry Jane (Fennie Yuen). Frank has borrowed money from a warlord to pay for his pal's bridal bash but a rival group, led by Ringo and his thugs, are hell-bent on keeping loose-cannon Frank from keeping his promise. The boys kill Ringo in a face-off and the cops come looking for them, separating Ben and Jane. The trio escapes to exploited luck-of-the-draw Saigon to make their fortunes. Luck, however, isn't with them. In a violent, balletic dance to honor, greed, and a teenage pledge that is challenged with adulthood, Bullet in the Head is sentimental despite its exquisitely choreographed blood bath; it's steeped in the kind of code-of-ethics morality that has been the glue of buddy films since the beginning of cinematic time. Bullet in the Head is a tale of love and betrayal played out against a backdrop of wartime chaos, and while Woo had made other vital and vibrant movies--The Killer, Hard Boiled, and A Better Tomorrow--none were as impassioned as Bullet in the Head. That it retains its innocence at all is a tribute to this Hong Kong action auteur, who brands his movies with visual flair as well as a palette splattered with blood. --Paula Nechak
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: I hope this one is picked up by Dragon Dynasty for release
Comment: This movie was amazing. The character development was superb, coupled with excellent acting. The story follows three young friends through their young life as friends through a journey that none will forget. The action is amazing, and in many ways some scenes are almost too intense to take. I loved the movie, seeing what happened to each character, and the way some peoples lives end up far different than expected. See this movie if you love movies, you will not be disapointed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sometimes brilliant, sometimes painfully obvious...
Comment: I saw the director's cut of this film a number of years back when John Woo was "hot" in Hollywood terms. It was, for the most part, pretty good, but it's not a perfect film. The relationship between the 3 men is done in a very heavy handed, obvious way (they constantly, and I mean constantly, say "we're buddies, we're supposed to stick together"), Waise Lee's character is very poorly written, and it's hard to believe in the usual "lost innocence" plot line when these guys are having gang fights at 15, and we're supposed to believe that life as smugglers in Vietnam made them hard boiled (so to speak). Aside from that, the film has great setpieces (especially a shootout in a bar), the ending has a great shootout (even though thematically it's pretty obvious where it's heading) and the rapport of Simon Yam (who gives a good performance) and the 3 main characters is surprisingly believable. As one reviewer has already said, Woo is erratic, even in his Hong Kong days. Anyone who has seen Once a Thief or Just Heroes will attest to that. Here, he's intermittenly brilliant and obvious, sometimes in the same scene. It's worth watching if you're a Woo fan. If not, you can probably skip the film.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not the best of Woo but still a worth while watch
Comment: Jacky Cheung, Tony Leung, and Waise Lee are friends growing up in Hong Kong 1967. When trouble arises they decide to leave for Vietnam to become smugglers. Wlile the story doesn't ever really settle on anything and you don't know exactly where the movie is going to go, John Woo manages to bring us the bloodshed and and tragic friendships that he is best known for. Tony Leung does fine in his role, Jacky Cheung is outstanding, and then Waise Lee is the ony person I questioned. Simon Yam gives his usual average performance with above average moments. The movie of course comes down to the end. Don't expect a great movie like 'Better Tomorrow' or 'The Killer' but one that is different and is worth a watch for any Woo fan.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Your basic waste of time
Comment: This might be the perfect flick for a fourteen year-old who aspires to be a mass murderer. There is little to recommend it apart from the technical perfection of some of the cinematography and the staging of the scenes of mass destruction of people and property. Even these scenes have none of the balletic grace of Tarantino's "Kill Bill" films, his salute to the genre, or "Reservoir Dogs," which has a mystery at its core and some fine acting and dialogue that temper the violence.
"Bullet ..." is little more than two hours of broken glass, fire, blood squirts, amputation, beatings and explosions. This makes Gladiator look like a Sunday school picnic. The characters are totally flat, one-dimensional. There is virtually no plot aside from excuses generated to wreak havoc. The acting is weak, static, despite the fact that I don't understand a word of Cantonese. We are presented with a series of stereotypes (the hooker with a heart of gold, the good friend, the crazy friend and the bad friend).
Unfortunately the American stereotype of the Viet Cong as madmen -- and Saigon as hopelessly corrupt -- is reiterated here to the detriment of any understanding of Viet Nam during the American occupation. The worst thing is that -- because they are so shallow and undeveloped -- you don't care what happens to the characters. So I'll tell you and then you won't have to finish watching the film: they kill each other.
My advice-- skip it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: John Woo loses the plot
Comment: It's a common belief that John Woo lost his way when he moved to Hollywood, but in truth his career was always highly erratic even in his Hong Kong days. For every Better Tomorrow or The Killer on his resume there's at least one disappointment on the level of Bullet in the head.
On paper Bullet in the Head looks like John Woo's most ambitious and under-rated film, but sadly it turns out to be an entirely derivative and largely ineffective shoot-em-up that blows its few good ideas in all the overkill. There's the germ of a good idea in its sprawling tale of three friends who skip the rioting Hong Kong of 1967 to make their fortune in the chaos of Vietnam, but it's quickly lost amid the cartoon carnage - this is the kind of film where Woo will add a bomb disposal man having his arms blown off to the background of a romantic parting, and that's one of the more subtle scenes. Clunking construction and wild leaps of logic abound (it's hard to take Jacky Cheung's cries of "Don't make me commit murder!" seriously after we've just seen him gun down thirty people) and the tragedy of Vietnam is reduced to the level of a video game in several over the top and largely uninvolving action scenes.
There are a few mildly effective moments, such as Simon Yam's memorable introduction, but the lasting impression is of a hack who has seen The Deer Hunter and The Killing Fields several times without ever really understanding them. Horrendously disappointing. No misjudged underappreciated lost masterpiece, just a mess.
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