Great Cinematography but Nothing Else makes Hero Extremely Overrated *Slight Spoilers*

Rating: 2/10 (2 February 2005)

I could tell this was going to be weird. It's another crazy, flying, slashing, kicking, Chinese Matrix-wannabe. I knew that Quentin Tarantino, one of my favourite directors, put his name on this to keep it from being edited and nothing more. That's right. Tarantino has absolutely nothing to do with this. It was kinda his Kill Bill's fault I was inclined to see this. Kill Bill was great, and I would love to see another scene compare to the Crazy 88 sequence. I needed a fix of crazy Chinese flick. This one did have extremely high ratings and it was now on video. So is Hero really as good as they say it is?
Plot: .4/2.5: OK, we have this guy namedNameless (Li). He has slain three great assassins who were bent on killing the King of Qin (Chen). This takes place back when China consisted of the six warring nations, with the battle between Qin and Zhao being what we care about here. OK, so these assassins were bent on killing the King and Nameless killed them. Nameless is going to have a customary drink with the King for having killed the assassins. Nameless tells the tale on how he discovered how to play the assassins against each other. He knew that two of them, Broken Sword (Leung) and Flying Snow (Cheung) were lovers, but he finds out that they have since split up as Snow had an affair with the third, Sky (Yen). To put everything in place, Nameless killed Sky first, which brought Broken Sword (or as I call him, BS) and Snow back at each other's throats. After some bickering, Snow killed BS. Then Nameless challenges Snow and kills her as she is weakened by her emotions. The King nods, and then says he thinks Nameless is full of lies and tells him what he thinks really happened. We get to hear the story from Nameless, the King and finally the truth. It's a nice little story, but in the end, it's just a crappy fairy tale for the most part. The story is very run of the mill, even if the whole perspectives thing may be interesting for a while, it eventually gets boring to see the same thing over and over and over again with the only difference being a slight costume change. The actual story is a bedtime tale. This one drags like that dog from National Lampoon's Vacation.
Action: 0/2.5: OK, I may have loved the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill. I loved it dearly. It obeyed the laws of gravity, something this movie does not attempt to do. The action is more some kind of ballet than real action. The beauty of the surroundings is flaunted too many times and leaves the action in the backseat. The whole flying thing takes any tension that was possible and throws it down the drain. It's tough to get into an action scene that is supposed to be artistic.
Here's a case in point. In one scene between Ziyi and Cheung, they fight in a forest in autumn. Now, the whole flying leaves thing is beautiful for a while, but it's hard to get into the action if you can't freaking see it.
Then there's a scene involving jumping on water that's not only unbelievable to a fault, but repetitive.
Also, let's not forget seeing BS and Snow laying the smackdown on an entire army who apparently falls down before it's their turn and have shields that couldn't defend against a paper airplane.
Don't even get me started on that whole arrow repelling thing. You know, just because it's Chinese and crazy doesn't mean that it has an excuse to be crappy. An artsy sword flick can be just as much of a stupid action flick as Walking Tall.
Acting: .3/2.5: Everyone in this movie is one dimensional. Basically the only person with any emotion in the whole flick is Tony Leung. While I may not be the best judge of acting in Mandarin, I can still tell when someone has the skills of cardboard.
Entertainment: 0/2.5: Hero is meant for artsy people and those who are stoned. If you're stoned, you'll get a kick out of the pretty colours. That's about as far as the entertainment value goes.
Bonus
+.5 for the cinematography: OK, this movie has some beautiful cinematography. It doesn't matter in the long run, but it does showcase a lot of pretty colours.
-.1 for this: In one flashback involving the King fighting Broken Sword, the King runs through a bunch of green things looking for him, but when he's running, he makes a weird noise that sounds like he's revving a car. It's funny, but it's stupid.
Total: 11%: Just because Hero's from China doesn't mean you aren't just another stupid action flick. I guarantee if it was exactly the same, except American made and in English, no one would like it. Sure, it looks good, but that means near diddly. If I wanted art, I'd go to a museum. Hero is just a bunch of pretty colours and once you get past that, you have a shallow plot, over exaggerated action and one-dimensional acting. Curse you Tarantino for bringing this one overseas!