There’s a current enjoyable trend of having the great John Woo’s films re-released in the UK, such as his classic Hard Boiled from 1992.

We go back just two years for his next re-release, as his 1990 Bullet in the Head is making a welcome return to the big screen, with a 4K restoration.

The late sixties, Hong Kong, and three friends Ben (Tony Leung), Frank (Jacky Cheung) and Paul (Waise Lee) are preparing for a big event, Ben’s upcoming wedding to Jane (Fennie Yuen).

Unfortunately Frank runs into a bit of bother, by going through a gang’s turf, that ends badly. So much so that the three of them end up having to leave the country, and find themselves smugglers off to Vietnam to sell their contraband and make a fortune.

But once again they run out of luck at just the wrong time, and find themselves embroiled in the war, with a return home at anytime soon looking highly unlikely, as the local regime’s policy appears to be shoot first, ask questions later.

There’s no doubting that Woo’s film has an abundance of energy, with an incredible amount of violent action scenes, but they appear to be at the expense of a cohesive story.

The characters begin as affable toe rags bumbling around getting into scrapes. But then the tone changes quite dramatically, with what occasionally feels like a homage to Stallone’s First Blood, with acrobatic stunt people arcing through the air from a myriad of glowing explosions behind them.

The key theme is friendship, but it gets stretched like an elastic band through the entirety of the film, certainly beyond the realms of believability.

Still, the set pieces are impressive enough to keep on watching, as Woo behaves like a director with a new play set to not only play with but to blow to smithereens.

Certainly not as slick as Hard Boiled, but if you’re a fan of slo-mo action scenes and bullets flying with the air, you can’t go wrong with this one, that’s never looked better.