A camera-painters view on the origin of China

Rating: 10/10 (18 March 2006)

Hero is as said by fellow reviewers to be something extraordinarily beautiful and I cannot but completely agree. It beautiful both in form and plot, which seem to have been created to intertwine seamlessly.
Cinematographer Chris Doyle, often working with Wong kar-Wai, has been given the possibility to use colours without restraint and has used this possibility to its full potential. Yimou has never failed me so far when it has turned to humanistic plots, and Hero is no exception. The misconceptions that it has no plot, probably finds its foundation in the mythological landscape of ancient China. Here we deal with things that occurred during the emperor Chi'n, the founder of China, and a mythological person himself, almost. The spectra of other persons or creatures in the plot often have names like wind and such, making it possible to see that this picture acts at many levels and that as it concerns the struggle between persons it might also concern the struggle of the forming of a young nation, against the elements here in anthropomorphic mould . It is a myth and a saga....
Now I know absolutely nothing about Chinese culture, nothing worth a dime in something more than a lottery anyway...but this I know; Yimou has here created a masterpiece working on many levels which still set my mind on philosophical thoughts at the same time as I get blown away by fantastic action and incredible imagery all painted by the masters of Chinese film ( even if at least one of them is native Australian.)