A magnificent art house epic

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2017)

The King of Qin (Chen Dao Ming) is waging a war to unite all the kingdoms of China under his rule. This has created enemies, and three assassins, Sky (Donnie Yen), Broken Sword (Tony Leung) and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung) have vowed to kill him. Broken Sword and Flying Snow stormed his palace once and almost succeeded. Since then, no one is allowed within 100 paces of the King. Nameless (Jet Li) comes to the palace bearing proof that he has killed all 3 assassins. He is granted audience with the King and tells the story of how he defeated them ... with each story, he is rewarded and allowed to come closer to the King. When he is done, and only 10 paces from the King, the King expresses skepticism and offers his version of what he thinks really happened. A third version of the story is then told, which comes closer to the truth and reveals that it all comes down to these two men looking at each other face to face. The success of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the reunification of Hong Kong with Mainland China made possible the situation where China's celebrated art house director teamed with a cast of prominent Hong Kong stars to make a martial arts epic. This is a happy circumstance. Zhang Yimou creates a sumptuous epic that's both visually stunning (each version of the story is uniquely colour coded) and thoughtful ... considering what a hero would actually be in Chinese culture.