Hero

Rating: 10/10 (9 September 2004)

"Hero" is a great example of how movie footage can be used to mislead the audience. Now you think I'm going to talk about the flashbacks, the color scheme or something like that. No. I'm talking about the trailers. This is currently the #1 movie in the box office, but I think most people out there rushing to see it based on the posters and the trailers will be seriously disappointed. The movie is not about a romantic or heroic plot. It's a deconstruction of that kind of plot.
First of all, this has to be one of the most visually ambitious films I've ever seen. There is a scene where the largest number of archers you've ever seen together in the same frame throw arrows to a calligraphy house, and the master of the house orders his pupils to patiently accept death while writing in the sand. Writing and fighting are not different. And writing will survive the fighting.
Now that we've got the drooling about the visuals out of the way, let's talk about the plot. Yes, it follows a "Rashomon" approach to storytelling. That means different characters retell the same plot and the stories are shown on screen as accepted fact. But the intentions are very different from the ones in the Kurosawa classic. "Hero" isn't so much a storytelling experiment as an attempt to discern the nature of the so-called hero and the rules of honor that guided the historical battles in China.
In that regard, I think this movie has much more to say than I was able to catch on during my first viewing. Jet Li, who plays the hero, has to face a decision in the end, and the man he fights for the entire duration of the movie (only with words instead of swords) has to face yet another one. At the end, who was the winner? Who was the hero? What did the death that occurs at the very end of the movie mean?
Many people are saying that the movie is a visual landmark but that it's emotionally detached (unfair comparisons to "Crouching tiger, hidden dragon" abound) and pretty shallow. I think this opinion is wrong and that it's caused by the unusual approach to storytelling the movie takes and also by the expectations caused by the misleading advertising. This isn't a movie where we have to root for one or another character. We are watching one very big scope of things and we're being asked to think. Think real hard.
And that's one of the things I love the most about movies. When one viewing isn't enough to figure it all out. When you can talk for hours about the way you see it and the way a friend sees it and the way the video store nerd sees it. But it isn't quite enough.