Bullet in the Head

"Bullet in the Head" is also a single by rock/rap group Rage Against the Machine, taken from their eponymous album.

Bullet in the Head
File:BulletInTheHead.jpg
Directed by	John Woo
Written by	John Woo Patrick Leung Janet Chun
Produced by	John Woo
Starring	Tony Leung Jacky Cheung Waise Lee Simon Yam
Cinematography	Wilson Chan Horace Wong Ardy Lam Somchai Kittikun
Edited by	John Woo David Wu Dai Wai
Music by	James Wong Romeo Díaz
Distributed by	Golden Princess Film Production Co. Ltd. Media Asia
Release date	August 17, 1990
Running time	136 minutes
Country	Template:Film Hong Kong
Languages	Cantonese English French Vietnamese
Budget	App. $3,500,000
Box office	HK$8,545,123.00

Bullet in the Head (simplified Chinese: 喋血街头; traditional Chinese: 喋血街頭) is a 1990 Hong Kong action crime drama thriller film written, produced, edited and directed by John Woo (who played Police Inspector), starring Tony Leung, Jacky Cheung, Waise Lee and Simon Yam.

Plot

In 1967, Hong Kong, Ben, Paul, and Frank are childhood friends. They engage in all kinds of activities from racing bikes through the crowded city, to fighting other gangs. One day, Ben, the pseudo-leader of the group, proposes to his long time girlfriend Jane. They have a wedding with all of their friends in attendance. In order to pay for the wedding, Frank gets a loan from Mr. Kwai, a loan-shark associated with the mob. Frank races back to the wedding, but is accosted by Ringo, the leader of another gang. Frank begs Ringo to let him pass, but Ringo demands the money and hits him with a bottle, cutting his head. Frank manages to escape the gang members with the money, and reaches the wedding in time. He laughs off questions about his lateness and claims the injury comes from tripping in the gutter.

That night, Ben sees Frank's mother kick him out of the house. He goes and meets with Frank in the alley and confronts him about his injury. Frank tells the truth and the two of them seek out Ringo at a bar. They cause a distraction and Ringo's men leave. The two of them attack Ringo and accidentally kill him. The next day, police search for Ben and Frank. The two of them meet with Paul and decide to leave Hong Kong. Remembering what a guest told him at Ben's wedding, Paul suggests they head to Vietnam as the war has made smugglers rich.

Ben, Paul, and Frank get a load of contraband goods from Mr. Shing, a smuggler and agree to take them to Y.S. Leong, a Vietnamese gangster. The three friends leave and reach Saigon by boat. On their first day in the city, a Vietcong suicide bomber destroys all of their goods in an attempt on an ARVN officer. The three of them as well as a number of Vietnamese are arrested as Vietcong suspects. Despite trying to explain that they are Chinese, the three of them are interrogated and beaten. Finally, the ARVN soldiers find a young boy who is the real Vietcong bomber and execute him on the spot. Witnessing this has a profound effect on Paul and Frank.

Frank vomits into the river at the memory of the violence and declares he never wants to see anyone else killed. Paul on the other hand declares that guns equal power. Despite Frank's protests, they get their hands on some guns. Paul tests his theory by robbing a store almost immediately, to Ben's disbelief.

They finally find their way to Leong's nightclub/brothel and are surprised to see Sally Yen, a well known Hong Kong singer. It turns out that Leong tricked her into coming to the Vietnam and turned her into a prostitute. They also meet Luke, a killer for Leong who dreams of escaping to Hong Kong with Sally. The four of them form a plan to free Sally and rob Leong. They deliver fake goods to Leong, who accepts them at first, but then holds Ben, Paul and Frank at gunpoint, demanding that they drink urine. Luke sets them free and a shootout ensues in the nightclub.

Eventually, the four of them plus Sally hole up in Leong's office with an army of thugs and corrupt ARVN soldiers outside. Paul finds a box full of gold that the ARVN were using to bribe Leong and becomes obsessed with it. They escape Leong's office, but Leong shoots Sally in the back, wounding her. Luke and Paul reach the getaway car while Ben and Frank hold off the thugs. Paul begs Luke to drive, but he waits for the other two. They escape into the night despite a Vietcong attack on the road.

The next morning, the five of them wait by the river for a boat that is supposed to pick them up. Ben and Frank comfort the dying Sally while Luke looks for the boat and Paul guards the gold. The boat finally arrives just in time for an attack by gangsters and ARVN troops. The boat's driver attempts to flee but is killed. Paul starts the boat and picks up Frank. Ben and Luke carry Sally all the way to the boat, but she dies just as they reach it. Heartbroken, Luke lets her body drift down the river.

They four of them escape from the attack but the boat stops working. Paul panics as he is frightened that he will lose the gold. Frank angrily opens the box and tosses some of the gold over board. Paul points a gun at him and threatens him. Ben and Frank angrily argue with Paul and announce the end of their friendship. Paul breaks down, crying that all he wants in life is the gold. Just then, the boat is ambushed by the gangsters and it is sunk.

Luke, Ben, and Frank escape, but Paul goes back for the gold. The box is too heavy and almost drowns him, but Ben and Frank save him and the gold. The Vietcong ambushes the gangsters and takes Ben, Paul, and Frank as well as several ARVNs prisoner. They are brought to a prison camp where the prisoners are beaten, tortured and often executed for the Vietcong's amusement. While searching the belongings of the prisoners, the vietcong find the gold and buried in it a list of CIA agents and maps that Leong was going to sell to the North Vietnamese that he had gotten from corrupt ARVN officers.

A vietcong officer interrogates Ben, Paul, and Frank about the CIA, which they of course have no knowledge of. Later, teh Vietcong force an American prisoner to shoot other prisoners to their immense enjoyment. The Vietcong officer uses this to intimidate the three Chinese men, and Paul claims he works for the CIA. He is taken inside and Frank is chosen to kill more prisoners.

Frank panics and cries, screaming that he doesn't want to kill anyone. Ben shouts encouragement to him, and convinces the Vietcong to let him shoot prisoners as well. He happily kills some of the ARVN troops that had been chasing them. The Vietcong then tell him to kill Frank, which he agrees to, while giving instructions to Frank in Chinese. Ben shoots the Vietcong and he and Frank begin and escape, aided by Luke's arrival with an American strike force.

Meanwhile, Paul escapes from the Vietcong as well and takes the gold into a field. Frank sees him and follows him, but is wounded in the process. He crawls after Paul, crying out for help. Paul urges him to be quiet so that the Vietcong can't find them. Frank continues to scream in pain and fear, and Paul shoots him in the back of the head to silence him. Luke guns down the Vietcong and rushes to Frank's side, finding him still alive. Frank is loaded into a helicopter and taken to an American base. Ben chases after Paul.

Paul finds his way to a peaceful river village and steals a boat. The boat's owners try to stop them, so he massacres them. Ben sees this and tries to save a wounded child. Paul shoots both of them and drives the boat away. Ben is found by Buddhist monks and saved. He journeys back to Saigon and finds Luke who has been disfigured by hand grenade. Luke tells Ben that Frank is still alive, but that the bullet that remains in his head has changed him.

Frank now works as a killer in order to support his heroin use, which is the only thing that stops the pain from his head wound by reducing him to a catatonic state. Luke takes Ben to see Frank, whose first response is to shoot at his old friends. Luke offers him heroin, which he takes. Ben takes the needle from him, which causes Frank to try to kill him. He gives the needle back and Frank falls catatonic. Ben tries to talk to him, but gets nothing but blank stares. Finally, Ben takes the gun and aims it at Frank's head. Frank grabs the gun and moves it to point at his heart. Ben shoots Frank to put him out of his misery.

Ben travels back to Hong Kong, while Luke stays in Vietnam. In Hong Kong, Ben sees Jane for the first time in a long time. She has a baby named Frank, which Ben holds in his arms. Meanwhile, Paul has become a successful business man and has been named the successor to the CEO position. Ben enters the boardroom and confronts Paul. Paul is happy to see his old friend, but Ben is angry. Ben opens his bag and reveals Frank's skull, telling him what happened to Frank. Paul is indifferent and kicks Ben out.

Later, Paul leaves the office in his car and is chased by Ben. They shoot at each other for a while, eventually making their way to the pier that they had raced down on bikes as kids. Both cars crash. Ben thinks Paul died in the crash, but Paul attacks him from behind, wounding him. Paul picks up Frank's skull and yells at it. He wrestles with Ben for a moment and shoves a gun in his hand, telling him to put Frank out of his misery. Ben shoots Frank's skull. Paul turns the gun on Ben, but Ben pulls another gun and shoots Paul first. Paul dies. Ben tosses the gun and limps away from the scene.

Cast

• Tony Leung – Ben
• Jacky Cheung – Frank
• Waise Lee – Paul
• Simon Yam – Luke
• Fennie Yuen – Jane
• Yolinda Yam – Sally Yen
• Shek Yin Lau – Fatso
• Chung Lin – Y.S. Leong
• Hee Ching Paw – Ben’s Mother
• Hang Shuen So – Jane’s Mother
• Kan-wing Tsang – Jane’s Father
• Chang Tseng – Paul’s Father
• Kwong Lam Tsui – Frank’s Father
• John Woo – Police Inspector

Production

Writing

Bullet in the Head was originally planned to be a prequel to A Better Tomorrow but a falling out between Woo and producer Tsui Hark prevented this from happening. Woo reworked the script into what it is today, and Tsui made his own prequel, A Better Tomorrow III. After the breakup with his partnership with Tsui, Woo was having trouble finding backing for his films; stories have circulated that Tsui (one of the most powerful men in Hong Kong cinema) said Woo was hard to work with, and this led to his virtual blacklisting. At any rate, Woo financed almost all of the cost of the movie out of his own pocket.

Woo rewrote much of the script to incorporate his reaction to the 1989 incident in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Woo has described this project as his equivalent of Apocalypse Now, as it had the same exhausting and draining effect on him as that film had on Francis Ford Coppola. The cost of the film was around US$3.5 million, the highest budget for a Hong Kong film at the time. Like Woo's previous film, The Killer, this film did not do well in Hong Kong because audiences didn't like the allusions to the Tiananmen Square protests during the riot scenes. Woo was deeply affected by the shootings and felt badly that he touched such a raw nerve in people, but at the same time he felt the Chinese people should react and not hide from it.

Filming

The Vietnam exteriors were shot in Thailand, and the interiors were shot in Hong Kong at the Cinema City Studio. It was deemed too expensive to shoot the nightclub shootout in Thailand. The helicopter footage used in the camp raid was a mixture of stock footage from the Vietnam War, as well as scenes from another Vietnam film.

During the filming of some of the riot sequences, things got so chaotic on the set that John Woo panicked and ran into several shots. Once, he actually ran into an explosion, which caused large cuts on his head. Simon Yam actually burnt his face during the POW camp sequence.

Reception

Box office

In Hong Kong, the film grossed HK$8,545,123 - a disaster when considering its large budget. John Woo is quoted in Jeff Yang's book Once Upon a Time in China as saying that Tsui Hark's A Better Tomorrow III was been rushed into theatres to beat Bullet in the Head at the box office.

Censorship

Woo's original cut of the film ran over three hours long. Golden Princess demanded that Woo cut the film down to a commercially viable length; however, the original theatrical version still remained massively edited from Woo's final cut. As a result, the film exists in many different cuts due to local/market censorship. The longest version available now is the 2 disc-set edition by Joy Sales runtime: 135mins. The longer 136 min version was screened at a festival and was released on a Bootleg VHS.

DVD release

On 5 July 2004, DVD was released in a two disc platinum edition in Hong Kong Legends at UK in Region 2.

One year later, The John Woo Collection DVD were released on September 5, 2005 at 4 disc set including two Chow Yun-fat films they were: The Killer and Once a Thief they all three films directed by John Woo.

A director’s cut lasting 136 minutes screened at some festivals. It has been illegally released on a bootleg VHS. Another 135 minute version released on DVD has been sold to the public legally. It is distributed by Joy Sales; this disc has seamless branching which can be shown in its Theatrical Version, Alternate Ending version and the Festival Print version but the deleted scenes maintain a blue tint (possibly from the chemicals of the film reacting badly) and also frame jumping (film preservation done too late by the director himself).

See also

• Jacky Cheung filmography
• Simon Yam filmography
• List of Hong Kong Legends releases

External links

• Bullet in the Head at IMDb
• Bullet in the Head at AllMovie
• Bullet in the Head at Rotten Tomatoes
• Bullet in the Head at the Hong Kong Movie DataBase