Bullet In The Head 1990 Written by John Woo, Patrick Leung and Janet Chun, directed by John Woo. Someone gave me a copy of the longest version of the movie. I hadn't seen it in a while so I watched it.
Ben, Paul and Frank live in Hong Kong are long time friends who run in a gang. They fight with other gangs, one fight over some money winds up in murder, they run away to Saigon, smuggling some drugs to finance the trip. It's 1967 and there's a war on. It makes it easy to smuggle but hard to survive. On arrival a suicide bomber winds up blowing up their contraband.
The trio narrowly escape being executed for the bombing. They meet up with an assassin called Luke. They join up to rescue a singer from the hands of Luke's boss. A fire fight breaks out and Paul steals a chest full of gold when they escape. That gold is the cause of all their problems, besides the big one of going to Vietnam while there's a war on.
The group is waiting by the river for a boat to pick them up. The gangsters and the Vietnam army attack and they barely get away. Sally is killed and left in the river. Paul manages to save the gold but they're caught by the Vietcong. They are tortured and Frank is made to shoot other prisoners. Ben shoots a couple of prisoners and turns the weapons on the Vietcong.
Luke arrives about then with some American helicopter gun ships. They blast the Vietcong. Paul and Frank had escaped into a field, Paul shoots Frank in the head to keep him quiet, and escapes with the gold. Ben follows Paul and watched while he guns down some locals for a boat. He shoots Ben too. Some monks find Ben and patch him up so he can return to Saigon.
Ben finds Luke who tells him Frank is still alive. Frank lives on the streets, he's taking heroin to dull the pain from the bullet that's still in his head. Ben kills him and takes his skull to visit Paul. He's a successful businessman and he doesn't care. He tells Ben to leave. Later Ben and Paul battle to the death in cars.
It's got a good script and a great cast with Tony Leung, Jacky Cheung, Waise Lee and Simon Yam in the lead roles. The scenes in Saigon and the jungle are pretty realistic. It's a great reminder to stay out of a war zone. I've seen this several times already and was glad to get a longer version of the film.