Chinese Chicken for the Eyes
Written: Dec 11 '04 (Updated Dec 11 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: lush photography
Cons: long, slow, filled with subtitles
The Bottom Line: This is a definite renter.
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| bilavideo's Full Review: Hero (2004) |
Hero is an amazing film in so many respects, it's hard to begin. The story is a cut above the typical chopsockey film. The wirework is first rate. The cinematography is lush, bold and inspiring. The performances are moving. The only thing that isn't much fun about this film is reading all those subtitles.
No wonder the great QT gave this film his enthusiastic seal of approval.
Hero is a story set in ancient China, an empire some five thousand years old. A great warrior presents himself before Emperor Qin, the first such ruler of a unified China and the man whose name is repeated when we refer to his homeland as "China." This great warrior, referred to as Nameless (Jet Li), has come to the steps of the Forbidden City to present Emperor Qin with the swords of three assassins, all of whom had sworn to assassinate the Emperor.
Emperor Qin (Daoming Chen) is presented as a fierce and inquisitive man. As we learn from various Rashomon-style flashbacks, he knows there are those who would see him dead. He has a vision of a unified China, and is willing to send his armies as far as it will take, to subdue those who stand against him. His determination is such that he would think nothing of destroying any and all of those who dare to stop him.
The meeting between Nameless and Emperor Qin is presented in all its fanfare. Nameless is ushered forward, down a red carpet, past seemingless endless court attendants, who announce his arrival for the benefit of the king. Not to be misled, the Emperor Qin has the man brought before him to find out, exactly, how and why he killed the three assassins whose effects he has brought to the Emperor.
Nameless thus begins his tale, a tale of how he defeated these substantial enemies of the empire. His story begins with Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) an assassin he has decided to hunt down. The confrontation gives rise to a heated man-to-man battle between these two. It is a series of orchetrated maneuvers that come off as impressively lush and action-packed. In the end, Nameless defeats Broken Sword and proceeds to take action against his next two enemies, Flying Snow and Sky, who are lovers.
The claim that this one man could have defeated not one but three of the Empire's most dangerous assassins sparks skepticism in the mind of Emperor Qin. Nameless responds by claiming he killed Broken Sword by taking him alone, then defeated the other two by getting them to fight each other. The result is a film that spends about 20 minutes total in the present. The rest of this film comes to us in a series of flashbacks that play out like a set of randomized index cards scattered all over someone's living-room floor.
In most films of the chopsockey/wire-fu genre, the story, itself, is of little real interest. It's simply a mechanism used to present a series of well-constructed choreography consisting of pretended attacks and counter-attacks. Hero, on the other hand, manages to explore a topic of great significace to the modern Chinese: what to do about the sins of their past.
China is a land of more than one billion people. It is a huge, sprawling country that managed, some five thousand years ago, to pull together different people from different parts of the Chinese world, to forge a new and powerful nation. Yet, the Chinese cannot hide the fact that Qin was a powerful, vindictive, ruthless warlord who was willing to kill thousands, maybe even millions, to get what he wanted.
The Chinese today, while defending the role of Qin in the building up of the nation, have a difficult time defending him because he built China up at the expense of others. Yet, they are also proud of their nation. This is where nationalism, history and idealism come into conflict. How do you celebrate a man who killed thousands in the name of ambition? How, on the other hand, do you condemn him when it was his ambition that gave birth to one of the greatest nations in the world?
The film, itself, becomes a perpetually-changing discussion about what it means to be a hero. Nameless is originally proclaimed as one, but is he? Who best exemplifies the qualities of a hero in a film like this? The emperor? The assassins? Nameless, himself, struggles with the very meaning of the word. In the meantime, the battles, chase scenes and other action-packed moments along the way, are absolutely, visually, stunning. Opponents engage in sword play, chase each other along the tops of trees, run wildly over the surface of water and fight to the death in the desert.
The film is also peppered with poignance. When people die, there is a genuine sense of loss. These aren't extras in the worst sense of the Hollywood system. They're characters whose sufferings and losses provoke anguish and pity, even from their enemies. There is one scene, involving a battle of the ladies, between Flying Snow and Moon, that replaces blood and gore with a highly-suggestive red-blossomed world. Watching that many red leaves fall off of nearby trees is as powerful as any scene involving buckets of blood.
My favorite part of this film is the ending, which is also the part of this film that did not go well with a good many viewers, who were hoping for a more typical Hollywood finish. For me, the movie's true-to-life observations about memory, truth, lies, and the like, were priceless. If anything, the least of these was certainly not heroics.
As the truth of so many accounts finally comes out, our definition of "hero" also changes. One may be surprised to discover what this story has to say about heroes and their world. It's a rare film that gives us just about everything we could want: action, performances, some philosophical issues to chew on, and a combination of direction and cinematography that are, well, to die for. The only real weaknesses in this film are those blasted subtitles and an ending that is true to its higher purpose but one that leaves the action crowd feeling played.
This film is a keeper.
Recommended:
Yes
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bilavideo
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Member: Bill Kilpatrick
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