This first American trailer for Bullhead is aggressive and meaty and wants to punch you until you're drunk on it.



You can also see that at Apple.

Now, that promo is pulling the usual trick with foreign language film trailers: leaving out the dialogue, so as to not scare people away with the appearance of subtitles. Which, frankly, is just indulging those who won't watch a subtitled film. It's an insult to the film, and the audience, and it's a clear attempt at a cash grab.

And I'm also confused as to why so little of the film's actual narrative is being set up for us - it's not that I want it spelled out, it's not even being alluded to. The film is a crime story that takes place in and around black market cattle hormone dealing... did you pick up on that?

And then there's those edits, insisting on whacking home the connection between "the child" and "the man." It's the kind of filmmaking that wants to be noticed, which can only compromise its efficacy.

And what do these cuts actually mean? What do they tell us? We already know that the man was a kid once, because that's the natural order of things; and the implicit cause and effect suggestion is absurdly simplistic.

Thankfully, the film's original trailer is far better. Check this out:



Not perfect, by any means, but I know that I want to see the film suggested by this second promo much, much more.