This Hero has many achilles heels!!

Rating: Null/10 (28 December 2002)

Hero has arrived on Asian screens with a tremendous marketing push behind it, but unfortunately for all of its strengths (production design, art direction, costume) this Hero has many achilles heels.
First and foremost is a story so simplistic it hardly merits the 120 minute running time.
Director Yimou Zhang (Raise the Red Lantern) paints a canvas of endless beauty shots on which his admirable cast plays their slow motion emotional highs and lows literally to death, interrupted consistently by uninspired wire work fight sequences.
Strong performances from Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung are forever competing with the landscape to bring some grounded emotion to the film but Zhang tends to favour flying fight sequences that ultimately leave the audience feeling unfulfilled. The drawing of the characters' swords in preparation for yet another fight quickly becomes tiresome and signals more of the same is on the way.
Composer Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) brings a most inconsistent score to the film, at times spot on, but rather tedious the majority of the film's running time.
One even has to question the "epic" nature of many of the films beauty shots, clearly rendered in post production. That is not to say that hundreds of extras were not employed for many impressive scenes, but when presented with the ultra wide shot it is understood to have been matted out with CGI. The CGI bar was set very high many films ago and Zhang fails to push it any higher.
A positive nod must be given to the rendering of a fantastic cross bow artillery barrage sequence.
There is, however, a consistent feeling throughout the film that the audience has seen and heard it all before.
Approach Hero within ten paces on your own terms, not the marketing departments.