Hero
Rated: PG-13 The film you should be checking out at the Apollo sometime in the following week was nominated for Best Foreign Film at both the Oscars® and the Golden Globes, won seven Hong Kong Film Awards, and only came out in the U.S. two weeks ago. Quite an accomplishment until you discover that the film was of course released two years ago and just sat on the shelf at Miramax as the studio bumbled about in confusion at how to sell it. Hero is one of the better films you’ve never seen, until now. Briefly, the film follows a Rashomon-style structure (if you haven’t seen Rashomon, stop reading and go see it. No excuses. Just go) as the demise of three powerful assassins is told from various points of view. Why is their demise important? Well, the King of Qin (Daoming Chen) is trying to take over all of China (or “unify” as some might say—imperialism is a funny foreign policy) and with three assassins on the loose who don’t exactly see him as uniter, he needs them dead so he can sleep easy. Enter Nameless (Jet Li) who brings with him the weapons of the three assassins as proof of their ceasing to be. But the King is skeptical and wants to hear how Nameless achieved such a victory. Thus begins the series of flashbacks which will eventually uncover the Truth. 
If the marketing folks at Miramax (which only released it after Quentin Tarantino told them to), came up to me and said “Please, Matt, whore our film for us so we can put your words in advertisements as one-sentence blurbs which will invariably lead to people shelling out eight bucks and two hours of their time” I would respond with “Hero is like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but slightly better” to which they would respond “Thanks, but we’re gonna go with Joel Siegel. He’s a much better prostitute.” Still, my words hold true. The comparison has to be made because this is a film of a soulful soft-spoken nature with some bitchin wire-fu thrown in for good measure and revolves around political power and romantic entanglements (although there’s more of a balance in this film than there was in CTHD). But what puts Hero a little bit ahead is that it’s probably one of the most beautiful-looking films you’ll ever see. You’ll have to do some heavy searching to find a film that melds fight choreography, cinematography, and production-design so well. Each flashback carries a different color-coding. While this device may sound somewhat corny, it isn’t. Director Yimou Zhang (and if I should have switched the surname around, I apologize) knows how to sell mood. At the very least, he and cinematographer Christopher Doyle have created a film where the words “visually stunning” are an insult. In short: it’s pretty. But the prettiest girl at the party with not a single interesting thought in her head can get pretty dull, pretty fast and Hero, also like CTHD, doesn’t have a lot going for it in the story department. Yes, the Rashomon-style keeps the story fresh as we’re eager to get closer to the truth behind the characters motivations, but after the film is over, there’s not a whole lot to chew on. Some will disagree and happily plunge into the expanse of the unsaid the film presents. But when you have a random fight scene where both fighters have an odd aversion to water (because dancing on water looks cool…OR IS IT THE FEAR OF A SUBMERGED PSYCHE?!!?!) or a repeated action in all the flashbacks that gets to be comical, there’s a problem in the storytelling. There are certainly some interesting ideas presented, but nothing that hasn’t been done better and with more contemplation in other films. So if you’re in the mood for a soothing, visually appealing wire-fu flick that’s not going to split your mind open, Hero is definitely a good bet. If you like CTHD, you certainly owe it to yourself to see this film. And if you like film in general, you owe it to yourself to see another Miramax-owned film that wasn’t lucky enough to receive the grace of Tarantino: Shaolin Soccer. It’s the most fun film you’ve never seen and they have it over at Campus Video. RENT IT. Because foreign flicks don’t all have to be about existential crisis and stolen bicycles. Words by |