Bullet in the Head

John Woo described this as his Apocalypse Now, saying it drained him the way that film drained Coppola. The difficulty was not only logistical. After what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989 he rewrote much of the script and folded his own reaction into it. Hong Kong audiences did not want that. The Tiananmen allusions in the riot scenes went down badly and the film took HK$8,545,123 locally, a disaster against its budget. Woo's first cut ran over three hours. Golden Princess demanded a commercial length, and even the version that reached cinemas was heavily trimmed from his own final cut. It now circulates in several forms: the theatrical version, an alternate-ending version and a 136-minute festival print. The story follows three friends who leave 1960s Hong Kong for Saigon to make money and are turned against each other by the war. Tony Leung, Jacky Cheung and Waise Lee star. Who it is for: viewers who want Woo looking at ruin rather than action, ending a friendship with betrayal rather than bullets. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the elegant gunplay of The Killer. This film is ugly, long and deliberately exhausting.