Beautiful but Boring and Completely Overrated

Rating: 5/10 (17 December 2005)

China is split in six kingdoms and the King of Qin (Daoming Chen) wants to unite them. He summons the nameless hero (Jet Li) that killed his three greatest enemies - Moon (Zhang Ziyi), Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung) - to visit him in his palace and tell how he defeated the menaces. In the end, the King questions the truth of the story told by the hero.
With nomination to the Oscar (Best Foreign Language Film), another twenty-one (21) wins and nineteen (19) nominations including to the Golden Globe (Best Foreign Language Film) and rated top 250#148 in IMDb, "Ying Xiong" was a great deception for me. The stunning cinematography and costumes use bright colors and are simply spectacular. The special effects are amazing and the cast has great performance. But there is no plot, and the confused and repetitive screenplay has a very short and low paced story and shows martial arts fights most of the time to complete the 99 minutes running time (including the credits). My vote is five.
Title (Brazil): "HerÃ³i" ("Hero")