Comparisons, and own merits

Rating: Null/10 (25 August 2003)

Associations with Crouching tiger, Ashes of time and Emperor and the assassin are ineluctable. Of the four I find Hero to be most visually engaging (if not grandiose). I'm still trying to digest Zhang's message (who is more a moralist-by this I mean morals in fables rather than morality per se-than the other filmmakers), this fatalism toward totality or totalitarianism, and hope in revisionism. Fatalism is a theme through Zhang's films (esp Judo, To live, Raise the red lanterns), and he manifests it with colors (esp red in earlier films); he is more a symbolist like Mallarme than, say, a formalist like Albers, and he uses them damn well. The film is nostalgic, for dynastic China, if not escapist, from communist China, in which he grew up. But Zhang seems to see one as metaphor for the other, and he at once condemns and condones both via either. It's a hopeful hopelessness.
That said, I like Emperor and the assassin much more in terms of story and characters. Of course Chen Kaige is more a dramatist and ironist than Zhang. Zhang's epic is universal, whereas Chen's is transversal-ie Chen tells the literal and figural relatedness within and among his character-complications and world-complexities. We see Emperor Qin as both atrocious and tortured, the kingdoms idyllic and chaotic, all toward the perverse violence of origin and the present. Fundamentally, both films are exercises in extravagance. Beyond martial 'arts'.
A note: Chris Doyle is a director's favorite nowadays (Chen and Zhang-who used to be a cinematographer for the former-of course Wong Kar-Wai, and last but not least, Hou Hsiao Hsien, who also has the brilliant Chu Tien Wen on his left), and rightly so: he has a way of keeping your eyes glued to the screen, a flawless continuity of tints and hues, shadows, exposures, contrast and saturation; the framing is impeccable, and easily outshines the direction at many times. I can only hope Mr Doyle continues to develop and breakthrough his fine art.