The Guardian
08-28-2004, 04:09 PM
I confess to not knowing a thing about this movie prior to Friday. I started looking at reviews on RottenTomatoes and this movie was incredibly highly ranked (95%+), which is unusual as this movie is a foreign language film (sub-titled). The movie stars Jet Li and some other fairly well-known martial artists.
Hero is set approximately 2000 years ago, when China was a land of 7 warring kingdoms. The emperor of Qin, at this point in history is about to unite China via force and will go on to build the great wall and found the Imperal Dynasties.
The premise of the story is that the emperor is in grave danger due to assasins constantly seeking his life. Jet Li plays Nameless, a prefect of a province in Qin. (Lowest imperial rank) Somehow, the "Hero" has managed to eliminate three of the most feared assasins in China. Nameless is summoned to the Imperial Court to tell his story and receive his reward.
All the action is told via flashback and the action is in the same vein as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". These are super-duper martial artists and the choreography is just amazing.
I am not going to spoil the movie for anyone, but there are more twists in the tale than a pretzel has curves. Just when you *think* you know what has happened, the tale takes a 90-degree turn.
This is not *just* a martial arts movie; there is a darned fine story as well as good acting underneath all of the fancy footwork. The cinematography is also incredible with colors used to portrait moods very well. Several scenes stand out: two female combatants, dueling to the death amidst a blizzard of yellow autumn leaves; Hero and another assasin dueling; running over a high mountain lake; ...and more.
Hero is worth going to just for the incredible visuals. The movie score as well is particularly well done, with violin solos by Itzak Perlman (sp) and some drum work by the Komodo Drummers.
At the start, the sub-titles were "different" as I had not gone to any movie with extended sub-titles before. But by the end of Hero, this was most certainly not an issue.
Supposedly, this is the most expensively produced movie to come out of China---it shows on the screen. Viewers should see this movie on the big screen, at least once, to pick up the incredible visuals, the experience is well worth it.
Hero is set approximately 2000 years ago, when China was a land of 7 warring kingdoms. The emperor of Qin, at this point in history is about to unite China via force and will go on to build the great wall and found the Imperal Dynasties.
The premise of the story is that the emperor is in grave danger due to assasins constantly seeking his life. Jet Li plays Nameless, a prefect of a province in Qin. (Lowest imperial rank) Somehow, the "Hero" has managed to eliminate three of the most feared assasins in China. Nameless is summoned to the Imperial Court to tell his story and receive his reward.
All the action is told via flashback and the action is in the same vein as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". These are super-duper martial artists and the choreography is just amazing.
I am not going to spoil the movie for anyone, but there are more twists in the tale than a pretzel has curves. Just when you *think* you know what has happened, the tale takes a 90-degree turn.
This is not *just* a martial arts movie; there is a darned fine story as well as good acting underneath all of the fancy footwork. The cinematography is also incredible with colors used to portrait moods very well. Several scenes stand out: two female combatants, dueling to the death amidst a blizzard of yellow autumn leaves; Hero and another assasin dueling; running over a high mountain lake; ...and more.
Hero is worth going to just for the incredible visuals. The movie score as well is particularly well done, with violin solos by Itzak Perlman (sp) and some drum work by the Komodo Drummers.
At the start, the sub-titles were "different" as I had not gone to any movie with extended sub-titles before. But by the end of Hero, this was most certainly not an issue.
Supposedly, this is the most expensively produced movie to come out of China---it shows on the screen. Viewers should see this movie on the big screen, at least once, to pick up the incredible visuals, the experience is well worth it.