From the archive: "Bullet in the Head"

Although reputationally overshadowed by 1989's The Killer and 1992's Hard Boiled, 1990's Bullet in the Head remains the most ambitious film made by John Woo before the director's turn-of-the-millennium Hollywood relocation. Starting out as an American Graffiti/Big Wednesday-like teen reminiscence, it gradually segues into a large-scale, widescreen period piece before concluding as homecoming drama: The Deer Hunter would be the obvious Western reference point, although Bullet proves a far less problematic landmark. After killing a gang boss, three boyhood friends (Tony Leung, Jackie Cheung and Waise Lee) are forced to swap the frying pan of Hong Kong's 1967 riots for the fire of Vietnam, where they find the independence movement blowing up. Realising that lawlessness is the norm, the trio turn their hands to profiteering, taking up with a mercenary in a white suit (Simon Yam) only to eventually find themselves caught behind enemy lines, their friendships fraying under pressure. The gear changes that result aren't as smooth as those in Woo's 'straight' action movies, and the brothers-in-arms homoeroticism is absurdly overstated in places: two of the boys share a pregnant moment in a nightclub toilet, played out to the strains of "I'm a Believer". But of all Woo's Hong Kong films, this is the one that most suggested he wanted to work for an American paymaster, or at least move in the same circles as his American contemporaries: there are varyingly subtle nods towards Rebel Without A Cause, Mean Streets and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, to spot but three. It's sincere in that desire, at least: however knowing and referential the filmmaking gets, and however much one prison-camp sequence borders on revisionist wish fulfilment, the movie is performed without a single flicker of irony - it pre-dates Tarantino - and Woo stages the gunplay and pyrotechnics with his customary elan.

(November 2008)

Bullet in the Head returns to selected cinemas from Friday, ahead of a limited edition Blu-ray release on June 22.