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Hero
Movie Stats & Links |
| Starring: |
Jet Li, Tony Leung
Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung, Donnie Yen |
| MPAA Rated: |
PG-13 |
| Released By: |
Miramax |
| Kiddie Movie: |
You need decent
reading skill. |
| Date Movie: |
She might wonder
why you can't fight like Nameless. |
| Gratuitous Sex: |
No nudity, but you
sure know what's going on. |
| Gratuitous
Violence: |
Lots of martial
arts violence, but nothing gratuitous. |
| Action: |
Mostly fighting. |
| Laughs: |
Nah. |
| Memorable
Scene: |
Flying Snow
pretending she is Storm from the X-Men comics. |
| Memorable
Quote: |
Nah. |
| Directed By: |
Zhang Yimou |
| Produced By: |
Bill Kong, Zhang
Yimou |
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Hero
A Movie Review |
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I’m going to come right out and tell you that I’m
giving "Hero" 2 ½ stars. Pretty much it’s 5 stars as an artsy martial
arts film, beautifully shot, with an interesting story and great
acting. But I’m giving it zero stars as a movie I want to see Jet Li
in, let alone want to read the story (it’s in Mandarin with English
subtitles), and I still can’t take flying people seriously in a movie
even though I know it is acceptable, like your
"Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon."The story plays out sort of like this… Jet Li plays
a guy called Nameless and we’re set up about 2200 years ago in ancient
China where the King of Qin (Chen Daoming) is trying to conquer all of
the lands to make one great nation of China. Well, Nameless gets to
meet the King because he has killed the three assassins who have been
hell-bent on getting rid of the good King. So the King wants Nameless
to regale him with the stories of how he was able to get rid of these
three great warriors, namely Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu-wai),
Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung), and Sky (Donnie Yen). As Nameless tells
each of the stories (we get flashback scenes of the fighting) the King
lets him get a little closer to his throne, starting at 100 paces and
ending at 10. Nameless finishes his story telling, and the King pretty
much says "Bullshit," but not in those words, saying he fought all
three of these people, and he doesn’t think Nameless could have gotten
the job done. So now we get the King telling Nameless his theory on
what happened, and we get flashbacks to what the King envisioned
happening. Well, the King is closer to the truth, so now Nameless has
been called on it and he tells the King exactly what happened, so yea,
we get flashbacks to the real stories on what happened between
Nameless and the assassins. All of this story telling is done with
lots of martial arts action similar to the scenes in "Crouching
Tiger…", you know, the flying around, bouncing on water, slow motion
action (which is pretty cool, especially the scene of Nameless cutting
through some water droplets) but also done a little too often, and
people spinning around. I think you get the point.
This is definitely not a Jet Li movie you are probably familiar
with, you know, your "Cradle to the Grave," "The One," "Romeo Must
Die," and "Lethal Weapon 4." No, this is Jet Li in a great movie in
the Chinese Martial Arts style, but I still can’t get into them. I
started chuckling as Flying Snow, well, flew, and when she was acting
more like Storm from the X-Men in one of her fights, I just couldn’t
take it seriously. It was interesting to hear the King dissect
Nameless’ stories, and the flying arrows were really cool, but again,
I just couldn’t get into it and felt sorry for the poor dude who was
going to have to pull all of the arrows out of the wall.
Look, let’s warp this up like this: If you liked "Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon" you will appreciate this movie just as well. If you are
looking for Jet Li to dodge bullets and kick the ass of the bad guys,
this ain’t that movie. I’m standing at my 2 ½ stars, averaging my two
scores together.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!! |
