Needs more Donnie Yen

Rating: 5/10 (6 July 2005)

Here's something about myself that I still don't understand: I'm the kind of guy who thinks 'Hero' needed more Donnie Yen (in fact, all movies need more Donnie Yen), and who would recognize Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung from their appearances in Jackie Chan films. Yet when it comes to Zhang Yimou, I consider 'House of Flying Daggers' to be almost worthless and Yimou's earlier drama 'To Live' to be a much better film, more deserving of a place in IMDb's top 250 'Hero'. Honestly, 'Hero' is pretty boring.
Thousands of years ago, China was divided into seven kingdoms, the most powerful being the Qin kingdom. The King of Qin (played by Daoming Chen) sought to unite / conquer all of China to enforce one land, one people, one written language, etc. The assassins Sky (Donnie Yen), Broken Sword (Tony Leung), and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung) vowed to kill the King of Qin, but when the three assassins are defeated by a nameless official (Jet Li), Nameless is granted an audience with the King and asked to recount how he defeated the three great assassins.
Now I don't mean to trivialize things, but 'Hero' originally appeared as a wu-xia rather than a drama, and it stars Jet Li and Donnie Yen and Siu-Tung Ching was the action choreographer. With such a line-up, how was I not going to expect a straight up as wu-xia kung-fu movie? Any fan of kung-fu movies would know that before 'Hero', Jet Li and Donnie Yen last faced off on screen in 'Once Upon a Time in China 2' (1992), and it is easily one of the best kung-fu fights on screen. Most of the action in 'Hero' is generally slow and boring. It definitely needed more Donnie Yen.
People will tell me that I'm missing the point if I look at 'Hero' solely as a kung-fu film. Yes, I noticed all the pretty colours, and yes, I noticed the Kurosawa and 'Rashomon' style, but I still thought 'Hero' was rather dull. On the other hand, even though the ideology behind 'Hero' is arguable, I find it somewhat strange that a film that seems to support totalitarian ideology is so widely praised.
'Hero' is a visually stunning film, unfortunately I'm not interested in that. It is a boring action film, and the message is somewhat questionable. It needed more Donnie Yen - 5/10