YMMV / Bullet in the Head

• Americans Hate Tingle: Like John 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 bad 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.
• Complete Monster: Paul is part of a trio of delinquents who go to war-torn Vietnam to escape arrest. Witnessing the brutality of the war, Paul decides that those with the best guns control the world, immediately robbing and pistol whipping a store clerk upon getting his first gun. Over the course of the film, Paul is consumed by Gold Fever, gunning down anybody who stands in the way of him and his gold, including threatening his supposed friends. After the trio are captured by the Viet Cong, Paul immediately sells out the CIA agents he got the gold from before leaving his allies to be tortured to death in the prison camp. In his escape, Paul personally shoots Frankie in the head, permanently brain damaging him to the point of needing a Mercy Kill, and massacres a bunch of villagers to steal a boat. Years later, when Ben confronts Paul for revenge, he tries to force his nemesis to destroy Frankie's skull just to psychologically torment him.
• He Really Can Act: Jacky Cheung who plays Frankie, was and is a HK pop idol. It's sort of like if Justin Bieber would've had the starring role in Buried.
• Moral Event Horizon: Paul crosses it when he shoots Frankie in the head and leaves him for dead. And then he massacres a village so he can steal a boat, wounding Ben in the process.
• Tear Jerker: Good grief, even the score is depressing.
  • Frankie gets attacked by a gang on the way to Ben's wedding. Later, his parents beat him and throw him out, as Ben sadly looks on.
  • Sally being abused and hooked on drugs.
  • Sally dies in Luke's arms in the water, her dream of escaping unfulfilled. On the boat, Luke sits silently grieving, while Paul urges them to hurry. Ben finally snaps at him caring more about his box of gold and starts throwing it in the river, prompting Paul to pull a gun on his friend. Then Frank pulls a gun on him. Ben then declares their friendship over.
  • Normally, a Mexican Standoff in a Heroic Blood Shed film is a badass moment between hero and villain. Here, it's friends fighting among themselves and it's gut-wrenching.
  • Ben encountering Frank after the war, now a deranged assassin who kills people to buy drugs for the pain caused by the bullet in his brain. Ben desperately tries to get through to him, but he barely registers. Ben realises that the kind thing to do is put him out of his misery. When he points his gun at Frank's head, Frank moves the gun to his heart.
  • Ben confronting Paul with Frank's skull, only to get brushed off.
  • Ben, having killed Paul, sadly walks away, his two best friends dead by his hand.
• The Woobie:
  • Frankie. Over the course of the film he gets beaten up by a gang, beaten and kicked out by his parents, traumatised by war crimes, drinks a bottle of whiskey for his best friend and (along with the others) forced to drink urine in a deleted scene, captured and forced to murder POWs, betrayed and shot in the head by one of his best friends and ends up a brain-damaged drug addict who ultimately has to be put out of his misery by his only remaining friend. Just...damn.
  • Sally as well. A singer whom the trio knew from childhood, she's forced into a life of prostitution and drug addiction by Mr. Leong. Our heroes succeed in rescuing her, but Leong shoots her and she dies a slow and agonising death, soo their promise to take her back home barely amounted to anything.
  • Ben becomes this by the end, having gone through absolute hell and having to kill his two best friends.

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