Machiavellian...

Rating: 10/10 (17 April 2003)

(Contains some spoilers)
The easiest part of Hero was enjoying the scenery and the use of colors - really well-made and captivating. Hero is definately technically a very superb movie.
The harder part is the messages contained in the movie. The "individual desires vs. the collective good" and "competing loyalties" themes seem to have a strong resonance with east asian storytellers. Hero contains both of those dilemmas in it - and the solutions it poses doesn't go too well with some western viewers (a swedish reviewer called it "beautifully wrapped fascism").
I disagree with this; in the end both "Broken Sword", "Nameless" and King Shihuang (the king of the Qin kingdom, who the four warriors "Nameless", Broken Sword, Flying Snow, and Sky sets out to kill) puts "the collective" (the Qin kingdom, and eventually united China) ahead of "the individual".
However: King Shihuang's lust for power is NOT greater than he is willing to let himself get killed by Nameless after listening to Nameless' story about the sacrifice Broken Sword made (the throne room scene in the end of the movie). Shihuang is as much a "spoke in the wheel" as Nameless, Broken Sword and the two other warriors, hence I cannot interpret the messages as "fascistic" in any way. It's message (as I see it) is that the system sometimes comes ahead of the individual, however excellent those individuals are....AND that in the end it DOESN'T matter whether Shihuang or somebody else unites China, what matters is that it gets done.....