This is the film Troy should have been

Rating: 10/10 (28 August 2004)

Ying xiong (Hero) is the film that Troy should have been. The thing that makes Hero a great movie is the cinematic style rather than the story. Yimou Zhang is a director with a vision on how the film should look and like our dreams, the images prove to be more powerful than the narrative.
Like Troy, this is an epic film set in the past, full of legendary characters. Troy told it's story by filming its' actors reciting their lines. Hero, on the other hand, develops exquisite images that linger in the mind and burns the legend into our subconscious. If Yimou Zhang were to come to Hollywood and have $180 million budgets, image that masterpieces he could make.
I didn't care for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Compared to Hero, it is a pretender while Hero is the real thing. I generally avoid foreign language films but Hero is my favorite foreign language film of all time. The story is pretty simple and people who put more importance on the story over the style will probably be disappointed. This is my 3rd favorite film of the year behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Collateral. It is better than anything that played in the theaters in 2003. 9/10