Propaganda and Sellout

Rating: 3/10 (5 October 2006)

Westerners criticize this film and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for its fantasized action scenes. Just like in western culture's Sword and Sorcery, a wizard can cast a spell and let out lightnings and stuff, it's a culture thing. Walking on water, speeding on rooftops, that's part of Chinese Martial Arts Literature, an ability to move fast and swift.
As for Hero the movie, it's been badly received by Chinese Culture based viewers (including Taiwan) not only because it changed the history, also because it's a commercial movie aimed for westerners, selling out beautiful but empty, flawed Chinese culture and icons. It's a sellout in box office, true enough, and also a sellout to our culture, only to please westerners who have no idea what real Chinese Martial Arts Literature is.
In most of recent decades' Martial Arts Literature such as Jinyong's works, the Martial Arts Hero/Swordsman (pronounced Xia), just like Euorpe Knights and Japan Samurais, has a basic belief that is to help the poor civilians, overthrow tyrants and corrupted officials. Martial Art Heroes are often against the government, they don't belong to any kind of authorities or organizations, they stand on the same side with the people, just come and go in their own will, carrying out their own beliefs in justice. And in Hero, it works the other way around.
Sure enough, Hero is a propaganda movie made by the Chinese Communist Government. Remember what the movie is all about? It teaches people that, for the course of greater good, one must sacrifices his own life to fulfill the country's need. Even though in the real history, the emperor killed all the scholars at that time, and burned out every book he can find, in order to keep his people from getting educated, so that the mind-numbed-never-go-to-school-people will not stand up against him, the movie teaches people to just tolerate the tyranny for the country's sake.
That's so nonsense. So right winged. Hero is just a tool for political brainwashing.