Stunning

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2003)

Having followed the production of Hero since its inception one can
imagine how badly I have been looking forward to this film, and
how high my expectations must be. Because I live in San Diego
and not China, I had resigned myself to having to wait til November
to see it(the release date has been pushed to May as of the time of
this review). Fortunately for me, Hero premiered at the Palm
Springs film festival, a scant 2.5 hours from here. So me, my
roommate, and some friends in L.A. all jumped in our cars and
drove out, betting that the film would be worth the drive. We all
agreed: TOTALLY WORTH IT!!! This film completely met my
expectations and then some. The plot centers on the legend of the
assassins who were sent to kill the King of Qin, more than 2,000
years ago. Jet Li plays Nameless, a small territory prefect who is
allowed to sit and drink with the Emperor for killing the three
legendary assassins, Broken Sword(Tony Leung-Chiu Wei), Flying
Snow(Maggie Cheung), and Sky(Donnie Yen). The film is told in
flashbacks as Nameless recounts how he did it. The long
awaited rematch between Jet Li and Donnie Yen takes place at the
beginning of the film, and while not quite as jaw dropping as their
dueling in ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA 2, it was a thing of
beauty. The choreography by Ching Siu Tung(who seems to do all
the wuxia films) and Wei Tung is excellent. Christopher Doyle's
cinematography is breathtaking throughout the film, and this
combined with Emi Wada(Kurosawa's RAN)'s costumes play an
important part in the different versions of the stories that are told.
Each version has a different color design, and each color has a
specific meaning, but I'm not going to tell you what. Go see it and
find out. Tan Dun's score, while very similar to his work on
Crouching Tiger, is also perfectly used here, which is really all that
matters. All in all, the film is just amazing. Obviously there are
going to be a lot of comparisons made between Hero and
Crouching TigerÂ…so here is mine. Crouching Tiger was the better
movie, but I like Hero more. 4 out of 4 stars.