review for Bullet in the Head on AllMovie

An exhausting and harrowing study of loyalty, friendship, and greed in the darkest depths of the human soul, Bullet in the Head found Hong Kong action director John Woo helming one of his most personal efforts to date when the film was released in 1990. Inspired by the horrors of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Woo has crafted an almost overwhelmingly violent anti-war film, which also happens to be one of his strongest in regards to his common subjects of brotherhood and betrayal. As three young men who escape Hong Kong in order to make a profit in the chaos of war, Tony Leung, Jacky Cheung, and Waise Lee are all convincingly effective as a trio of recklessly naïve troublemakers forced into unimaginable situations in the black abyss of Vietnam. Their friendship put to the test when greed comes into play, their decisions and reactions offer a much needed dramatic backbone for a film filled with such nonstop graphic violence. Though Woo would later return to the war field (and explore many of the same themes) with the clichéd Windtalkers, that film comes nowhere near to his work here. With images that are just impossible to shake from memory for days after viewing it, Woo's film has drawn frequent comparisons to such American efforts as The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979); and though Bullet in the Head may not be quite as epic in scope, it is no less emotionally devastating in terms of presenting the brutality of war. Released in various truncated forms, viewers are best advised to seek out the definitive 136-minute version in order to experience the film's intended emotional impact.