Hero (2004)

Sadly Over-hyped

Best movie ever!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I certainly disagree with the message. I understand that this is a telling of how China came to be by "uniting" the different kingdoms but it, possibly inadvertently, sends the message that war and conquer are good. The king is a ruthless man who will do anything to achieve his goals of bringing the different kingdoms together. This includes the killing of many individuals. Sometimes war is necessary. To protect. But never to conquer. We should all be united, but not in the way this film presents. We can live separately yet together in peace. The different kingdoms could have thrived separately but this king was willing to kill so that they would all be forced under one rule. Not because the others were dealing with injustice or the like but because that's just how he wanted it. So while the film is obviously stunning visually - the choreography, the use of color, lighting, etc. it all ultimately fails in its portrayal as the message is not one that deserves to be uplifted. It's a great film for its endeavors but ultimately shameful in what it's trying to tell us. Allowing the king to succeed may have stopped the killing but he started it to begin with and this choice undoes the entire sacrifice of nameless and the two lovers and their pain.

The start is really cool, with very enjoyable action scenes. The emperor's perception of the hero originally could be a red herring...or not? The sense of mystery made it exciting to find out the actual story. But ugh, I was really disappointed in the story later on.The plot went all over the place and had practically no cohesion with all sorts of stuff not making much sense. All those plot twists were annoying.The visuals are beautiful, but that's basically the only thing I can compliment. The action scenes were quite cool at first, but later on became rather annoying with all the exaggerated jumping and whatnot.I would recommend only watching until the first half. The second half is filled with irking plot twists and is overall less exciting. Two-thirds into the movie, I was already losing interest because the plot felt nonexistent just for the sake of tacking a moral message in the end.TL;DR: It was cool in the first half, but the really poor plot towards the second half marred the movie.+ Great visuals+ Enjoyable action scenes in the startReally illogical and contrived plotAction scenes eventually become annoyingly exaggerated

Beautiful to watch, past paced, engaging story, poignant at times. It never came of as overwrought or corny, which is a feat because this type of story could easily come off as melodramatic or campy. The cinematography and martial arts sequences were absolutely stunning. This movie was everything I want a historical action flick to be.

I'm the first to admit that I'm not a big fan of wire work. Used very sparingly in the occasional fight scene – so you stand up and think "woah!" – I can live with it. But in the likes of this film and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, the action choreographers always see fit to dispense with the laws of physics and deliver up battles where the opponents soar through the skies, perform impossible manoeuvres in mid-air, and get up to all manner of airborne mischief. I don't mind when there's a reason for the wire work in the film – for instance, SHAOLIN SOCCER used it for laughs and was great; THE MATRIX had a sci-fi premise so I could live with that. But it's my belief that these historical epics would do much better by keeping their actors' feet firmly on the ground. Firstly, it would enhance realism, and secondly, it would enable the participants to get on with the actual fighting, rather than their ballet-style trying-to-look-good antics.HERO's fight scenes are interminable. I'll agree that they are beautifully shot, with the emphasis on lots of bright and vivid colour contrasts, and accompanied by effective 'ringing metal' and screaming sound effects, but at their heart they are hollow, taking place with no rhyme or reason; a lot of the fighters turn out not to be enemies after all, and other fights take place purely in the minds of their opponents. The trouble with this is there's nobody to root for; hell, even in those low budget kung fu flicks of the 1970s, at least the martial arts kid had a reason for fighting the bad guys; they killed a family member, or somesuch nonsense. In HERO, we get silly battles where the characters jump in the tree tops and skim across the surface of a lake. Sure, it's very pretty, but there's no reason for it.The plot is more interesting, in that it's a simple take on the old RASHOMON story of having one tale narrated by multiple characters. Things do get pretty murky and confusing, but they straighten themselves out for the climax, which adds an epic and historical angle to the proceedings that'll make you think "aaah!". The film's strength lies in the depiction of the Chinese army, made up of 18000 extras; the soldiers here are more impressive than those CGI guys in TROY! Their method of firing arrows is also very entertaining and the film's best scene has an attack of thousands of arrows soaring through the sky as Jet Li attempts to beat them off. There's also a cool arrow bit at the end which reminded me of G.I. SAMURAI but I don't want to go there too much.Jet Li famously returned to Hong Kong for this film, but he's unfortunately wasted in the role, which could have been played by anyone. He doesn't get an opportunity to act, just to partake in some wire work tomfoolery, and he's barely in the film. Unfortunately, greater prominence is given to unimportant secondary characters like that played by Tony Leung, who is utterly boring – and it doesn't help that I keep remembering the awful GORGEOUS every time I see his face! The best performance comes from an almost ethereal Maggie Cheung, who I thought had vanished into the woodwork since her Jackie Chan days in the 1980s; how wrong was I! This ageless actress may not be a born fighter but her acting is great and a real strength of the movie. She throws the work of the wooden Ziyi Zhang into sharp relief, revealing the latter actress to be nothing but a one-dimensional impostor.HERO deserves kudos for cinematography and sound effects alone. The unusual method of storytelling keeps it interesting, and it's just a shame that the action is so lacking in… bite. Had the film offered more meaty battles, it might have been one to watch over and over again; as it is, it works more as a passing curiosity than anything else.