a review of 喋血街头

Described to me before watching it as John Woo's The Deer Hunter, I'd say that that's pretty accurate! Three friends do go to Vietnam, and their lives are forever changed. The Deer Hunter slowly builds up to some pretty emotional moments because the lives and circumstances of the characters give the film the room to breathe. The lives and circumstances of the characters in Bullet in the Head force it to take an "actually, there's a lot of shit going on over here and we're going to show you all of it!" approach. It packs a near-equal emotional punch, not because it slowly builds to those moments, but because it's unrelenting and you can't catch your breath. It's kind of a lot. I was hovering around a 4.5 all night, but I woke up today with that "there's nothing stopping me from giving this a 5" feeling, and I'm not gonna fight it.