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Hero
Release Date: August 27, 2004
Studio: Miramax Films
Director: Zhang Yimou
Screenwriter: Zhang Yimou
Starring: Jet Li, Tong Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk,
Zhang Ziyi, Chen Dao Ming, Donnie Yen, Liu Zhong Yuan, Zheng Tia Yong, Qin Yan,
Chang Xiao Yang, Zhang Ya Kun, Ma Wen Hua, Jin Ming, Xu Kuang Hua, Wang Shou Xin,
Hei Zi, Cao Hua, Li Lei, Xia Bin, Peng Qiang, Liu Jie, Zhang Yi
Genre: Action, Drama
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for stylized martial arts violence and a scene of
sensuality)
Official Website:
Herothemovie.com
Plot Summary: At the end of China's Warring
States, the Kingdom of Qin is the most ruthless and ambitious of the seven
states. It's King is the target of assassins from all over China. Of all the
would-be assassins, Broken Sword, Flying Snow and Sky are the most dangerous.
When Nameless kills all three, he is offered a chance to meet the King.
Namesless explains to the King that how he used their personal relationships to
expose and attack their weaknesses, but the King tells a different version of
the same story.
Review by Peter
Veugelaers
- Words escape me ... ecstasy
When
mainstream Western audiences were introduced to elegant Chinese martial arts in
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) the box office sky rocketed,
unprecedented for an art house movie. Ang Lee’s historical epic featured
assassins’ to-and-fro between roof tops and a fetish for swords. Kill Bill
Director Quentin Tarantino has sealed his name on Hero like a portent for
box office luck, but this is no chop socky like Tarantino’s penchant. Raise
the Red Lantern Director Zhang Yimou debut martial arts epic is dazzling and
sweeping, panoramic when it brandishes weapons and transposes characters in
beautiful settings of variegated color....more
Review by John
Barker
- Who said they don't make 'em like they used to?
As a regular
cinematic-tourist to the Far East, I have experienced many of the wonders that
such a vibrant art-form provides, although Hero provides a few surprises
along the way, viewers familiar with martial arts films may find proceedings
more karate-flop than karate-chop.
Commonly
referred to as ‘wu shu’, translated from Mandarin as ‘martial art’, Zang Yimou
has crafted a film beyond the realms of simplistic chop-socky exploitation and
into a newly amalgamated genre of the avant-garde action film. Hero falls
under this new banner because the film maintains a colour palette exceeding even
Stan Brakhage’s tonal avant-garde excess and is diametrically opposed to the
classic Aristotelian narrative structure.....more
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