Leaving the hormones mafia in the meat industry story aside, I find what makes this film unique is an unprecedented ( at least for me) approach of the devastation the loss of manhood can bring. We come into this world either as men or women and this is part of our human experience in such an essential way that when this is disrupted we can see that it leaves us only half human. Jacky Vanmarsenille fills the other half with a bull-like persona which makes him unfit for living among "normal" humans. Simply injecting you a substance normally secreted in the body doesn't restore your wholeness as a manly (or womanly) human being especially if you misuse of it as he does. So he gains size and mass but the emptiness left by the lack of the precise manly dimension is but deepening the more his physical aspect reaches monstrousity. His lack of control over himself adds to this. He is enormously tragic and Matthias Schoenaerts is caring all the tragedy of the character, all the sorrow, in his eyes, in his look, as he always does in his acting - only this time even the eyes are halved as he only has the left one to serve him, probably as a reflection of his all-over halveness. So if you want to grasp all the turmoil the character is living in just don't loose contact with his look! Brilliant!

Some people here where shocked by the ending but at a certain point I was sure this is what was going to happen (the end of Michael Douglas's Falling Down came up to my mind), there was no other possible end as Jackie simply wasn't belonging, simply did not fit "normal" people since long, since that doomed day in his childhood. It's the story of a destruction that starts violently, abrupt one day, progresses through all he does trying to overcome the tragic event, hoping he will trick his fate somehow but fails it .

Welcome to the world of Bullhead, a brolick Belgian bodybuilder who is a mess of musculature, 'roid rage, and regret. Castrated in youth by a bully, his farmer parents followed medical advice to put him on bovine growth hormones--a type of steroid. As an adult, he is a caricature of a life, amidst the underground world of the black market steroid trade in Belgium. This is a foreign language film in the crime drama genre, with English subtitles.

Bullhead's Belgium is a place of secrets and shadows. The byzantine plot twists and turns with pain and angst, as law enforcement surveils drug dealers through the use of informants and technology. There is a romantic subplot as we see his adult development choked by his paradoxical being. It's a portrait of a man in a struggle to live within a toxic environment. The protagonist is an anti-hero.

I really liked this one. It's different from standard fare. It shows crime in an unglamorous light. It takes you into a strange world, hidden from the mainstream. It's dramatic and poignant, with a well-constructed plot. It's Friends of Eddie Coyle meets The Incredible Hulk meets The Nothing Man. This one is for Refn fans. Bullhead is recommended viewing.