(originally posted 20 September 2004)

Hero (aka Ying xiong)
Cast: Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Ziyi Zhang, Daoming Chen, Donnie Yen

Director: Yimou Zhang

Writers: Feng Li, Bin Wang, Yimou Zhang

Other than a couple of raving reviews, I hadn’t heard much of Hero when I went to go see it. After watching it, however, I dug around and read about a dozen or so more reviews, all of which were similar to the first 2. The reviewers raved and raved, gave it the highest possible score, and generally equated this movie to the coming of the messiah. Me, I just don’t get what all the fuss is about.

Hero is the story of Nameless (Jet Li) and his quest to assassinate the most powerful warlord (Daoming Chen) in pre-unified China. Told in flashbacks, the storyline itself was simple enough, made complex by the way in which it was told. An interesting approach, but in the end it fell far short of it’s mark. My general rule of thumb… if your story spends more time talking about the past than it does moving in the present, you are telling the wrong story. It’s a rare film that can successfully get away from this rule, and this film isn’t among the gems that succeed.

While I thought that both the cinemagraphic and digital imagery was gorgeous, I felt like I was being bludgeoned with it. Other than create interesting visuals in a mode not unlike still photography, the vast majority of images did nothing to further or enhance the story and, for me, came off as a director (Yimou Zhang) stroking his own artistic ego. In the end, I felt as if I had been beaten with the imagery stick about the head and shoulders for 2 hours… an altogether unpleasant experience.

The actors had a rough go of it in Hero. Due to the structure of the film, there was very little hope for any of them (aside from Jet Li) to really experience any kind of “journey” or growth. While their performances were all rock solid, I felt that they all came off rather flat and 2 dimensional, ultimately hampered by Zhang’s direction and story structure. Jet Li took a huge risk in accepting this role, as it is nothing like what he has done in the past. Li fans expecting his typical martial arts style film will be sorely disappointed in Hero. I do think, however, that it will open the door for Li to more complex character films in the future, as he does an admirable job as the only character to really develop over the course of the story.