Alternate Best Actor 1990: Jacky Cheung & Tony Leung in Bullet in the Head

Jacky Cheung and Tony Leung did not receive Oscar nominations for portraying Fai Jai “Frank” and Ah Bee “Ben” respectively in Bullet in the Head. 

Bullet in the Head is an over the top action movie combined with a technically a war epic as we follow a group of friends from Hong Kong who decide to make their fortune by going to Vietnam during the Vietnam war. 

The film opens with a combination between the youthful joys of playing around, music, possible romance and gang violence. We are introduced to the three friends including the great Tony Leung as the romantic of the group, Ben, who seems potentially as the leader, followed by Jacky Cheung’s Frank as slightly more seeming wildcard in the character’s particular exuberance towards life, and Little Wing aka Sau ming aka Paul played by Waise Lee who begins seemingly is happy just to hang out with his friends. The initial scenes are effective in establishing the camaraderie between the three guys who are in the state between childhood and adulthood where even the gang violence in a way feels like a part of a certain lack of maturity. The three performers though are quite good in presenting the innate warmth and initial joy of life in the connection between them. There’s an ease in all their interactions that really sells the notions of this childhood connection of friendship even as they very much are no longer men. Notably this energy is found in their performances even in the gang fights where they present the same joy about it as anything else as very much just part of what they do, as strange as that might sound.

Leung even as a slightly younger performer still very much had that star charisma, something that was remarkably shown the same year in the Days of Being Wild where just getting doing theoretically mundane things was captivating. Leung obviously has a more substantial role and makes use of it. Bringing that charisma to the role where he establishes the certain joys of participating in the pop culture at the time, but also the romantic connection with his eventual wife Jane (Fennie Yuen). He has an easy charm but also even more importantly this quietly internalized sense of devotion and nuance to those around him in that intimacy that honestly became one of Leung’s great trademarks. As big as this film begins and will become, Leung offers still that quietly powerful presence. Cheung on the other hand is very much about the wild energy he brings. A notable moment as such is when Frank is running to Ben’s wedding he runs afoul of a rival gang. Cheung in the scene brings this odd but effective optimistic manner even in a violent situation where there’s a strange sincerity just as there is a mania as he goes about not only taking the attack, going so far as to act like it is nothing to Ben when he finally does arrive at the wedding. Cheung in the moment captures this convincing embrace of whatever is thrown out at him in the moment, albeit only for this moment. 

Ben and Frank seeking revenge for that slight, leading to the death of a rival gang member, leads the trio to seek their fortune by delivering arms to Vietnam. Before he leaves though Ben has to say goodbye to his wife, where again not too much time has been spent on the relationship but frankly Leung doesn’t need it. He just brings immediately the burden of that connection that even as his wife stays back in Hong Kong, the weight of it is so brazen in Leung’s eyes as we see he will keep going regardless. When they enter into Vietnam the group is almost immediately faced with acts of terrorism than brutal reactions by the local government where they’re caught into interrogation. This swing represents the film’s curious tone that 9 times out of 10 I would say wouldn’t work, and I’m not 100% sure why it does here, but it largely does. One reason may be the gravitas offered by the cast particularly Leung who is quite amazing in these scenes in capturing just how immediately harrowing everything is, however Cheung and Lee for that matter also support in these earlier moments. We enter into a world of insanity however as the boys try to make a deal, however it gets trickier as Ben begins to empathize with a prostitute Sally (Yolinda Yam) who works for the crime lord they’re supposed to be selling to, however they do find help with a cool hitman Luke (Simon Lam) who also wants to help Sally. 

Within that scheme Leung again is terrific in creating instant investment in his silent reactions to Sally where you see that haunted quality in him thinking of his own wife, and whenever the film focuses on his reactions towards her he is very moving. Cheung though presents someone kind of within the insanity of things and maybe becoming a bit lost in himself. Where Cheung brings that intensity of the chaotic energy and increases it a bit more as we get to the captivating if totally mad action scenes as the group and Luke take down the gangster, however this leads to them making a run for it into hostile territory, and for Paul to become obsessed with his treasure chest full of gold he pilfered from the crime boss. Through these shifts we made our first dramatic shift where for me there was a fissure between Leung and Cheung. The first coming in as both admonish Paul for his greed, threatening their friendship and throwing some of his gold away. Leung brings such intense specific and wholly convincing intensity. Cheung goes very big, something he’ll keep doing as the film goes on, and his mania starts to begin feeling more like an actor just going wild than wholly this character losing it. 

Things get even crazier as the three are caught by the Vietcong and to take an extreme even more than the Deer Hunter they are forced to shoot other prisoners by the demented soldiers. The scene nonetheless seems designed to capture that level of desperation. I have to be honest I thought Cheung’s face contortions to show his emotional instability I felt just got ridiculous at this point and what I did like about his performance earlier felt just wholly overcooked even in the extremes of the film. For me this was made all the more obvious by Tony Leung’s performance which stayed absolutely convincing and emotionally penetrating in every scene. Including this one where Leung honestly delivers one of his very best scenes as an actor, which given his pedigree that is quite notable, where he is forced by the Vietcong to aim at Frank. While Cheung I think goes for a very over the top route where his facial expressions just keep getting bigger, Leung is able to deliver real pathos where he too is presenting this laughing mania of the lunacy of the scene, while his eyes are delivering the extreme nature of the heartbreak just as his delivery of the word bring such a profound urgency of his friend trying desperately to calm his friend despite the hopelessness of the moment. 

An attack saves the men only sort of as both Ben and Frank take a bullet from the gold obsessed Paul who goes full Bogart. Frank’s being in the head like the title which forces him to speed run Christopher Walken’s arc from The Deer Hunter, in again a scene where I didn’t find Cheung particularly convincing as the man lost in essentially his trauma and literal brain damage, rather I saw the overacting of a performer going for the most intense facial expressions that weren’t overly convincing. Again Leung though saved the scene, if also made the deficiencies of Cheung’s acting all the more evident, as in his quietly pained reactions do we see such sorrow of a lost friendship and is heartbreaking especially in the moment where Frank asks Ben to mercy kill him. Leung delivers on the severity of this situation and creates the real punctuation of it where you sense the tragedy of the loss with the old warmth and love for his friend. All of this leaving only the return to Hong Kong and revenge to avenge the loss of one friend by killing the former friend. Leung’s great in creating the changed man that is Ben in this final act, with the moment with his wife where there is no longer the wistful romance but just the haunted man searching for vengeance. In the vengeance itself, Leung could just make it an action scene yet he brings such vibrant emotion to every moment of it showing the ferocity of a man not just taking action for the sake of his friend but also the sense of betrayal of the very idea of friendship. Although that is just another instance of the powerful anchor Leung is throughout the film. Every scene is one where he elevates the material, and convinces you of the emotion even in this wild swings featured in the film’s wavering tone. 

(Cheung)

(Leung)