Hilarious Chinese Spaghetti "Western" Cartoon

Rating: Null/10 (1 June 2003)

"Hero" is a hoot! And let's set something straight--this movie has MUCH more in common with Sergio Leone's Italian westerns of this sixties, like "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," or the Warner Brother's cartoons of the fifties than it does "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
"Hero" has the stony-faced super-powered protagonist of the Man with No Name. That's obvious--in fact almost everyone in the movie is as cool about violence as Lee Van Cleef on his coldest day. But "Hero" has more than the attitude. It also has the vivid colors and, most importantly, the gloriously--and often hilariously--over the top visuals. Just as the best of the Spaghetti westerns risked being goofy in the pursuit bringing violence to the audience in a new way, so does "Hero." For instance, a character in this movie is killed by 10,000 arrows. All that's left is a wall stuck with a solid coat of arrows--and a silloette of virgin wall where the man was standing! AND IT'S PLAYED TOTALLY STRAIGHT! Dramatic music and all. Funniest damn thing I've seen in years! It's like a Bugs Bunny cartoon!
And the scene where Jet Li is doing the flying wire-fu thing over a lake is another riot. He is flying over the lake, barely touching the water now and then. Then, just as he's about to reach his foe, he changes his mind, puts on the air-brakes and does a goofy flip-flop, splashing water all over the place! And again, the musical score emphasises how dramatic this is supposed to be. But it's FUNNY! And I'm not being sarcastic--it was funny! I can't believe it wasn't mean to be humorous. I just can't.
If this movie had a comic musical score instead of a serious one, everyone would see it for the parody of the genre it MUST have been intended to be.