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Couldn't find a topic for this one so I thought I'd start one myself. I saw this years ago on a bootleg couldn't believe it hadn't made as much of a splash as 'The Killer' and 'Hard Boiled' (Lack of Chow Yun Fat, perhaps?).
A buddy suggested we should have a John Woo night soon and I told him we had to watch 'Bullet in the Head'.

The beav has nothing on this one, can anyone recommend a good dvd? I have been considering this one.

I watched it again for the first time in years last night and I will venture that it is Woo's most ambitious film, possibly his best.

Awesome that 45 minutes before the first bullet is fired, Woo delivers on some visceral, brutal, funny action scenes involving baseball bats, switchblades, and one dude wraps a bike chain around his fist.

Also impressive is how he can switch from the violence being over the top and entertaining (in a fun way) to it suddenly being tragic and a little hard to watch (POW sequence).

Was a little disappointed in the final showdown, as it seemed like the right note to end on would be one of the bad guy winning, but this time I was ecstatic to see justice done ('The Bad Sleep Well' depressed the hell out of me, okay?) in that overly melodramatic way that John Woo seems to have perfected.

And cigars that are really grenades? Awesome!
Would be interested to see others chime in, perhaps someone who doesn't think the transition from the heist/rescue scene to the POW camp worked?

Definitely my favorite Woo film. Did you watch the cut version or the extended one?

Until film theory/criticism evolves to the point where it can adequately assess the aesthetic watermark of Face/Off, this is definitely my favorite Woo. I have this DVD set and can only say good things about it. In the commentary it is explained that the film was originally to be 3+ hours long and Woo planned on re-editing the cut footage back into the film when he moved to America, but the producers destroyed the cut footage. [/url]

The Bullet in the Head director's cut is available through JoySales' Fortune Star remasters. Most places like dvdasian.com and hkflix.com will carry it. You can watch the theatrical version or the reassembled director's cut-the disc does seamless branching depending on which version you select. I used to have the HK Legends disc, but I found this one better just for the fact that it had most of the missing footage.

Thanks for the info! I'll get on that asap!