How did this pretentious piece of rubbish end up in top 250?!

Rating: 3/10 (1 January 2008)

Let's start with a disclosure. I am not a martial arts movie fan. In fact, I do not believe that martial arts movies have the right for existence as such. If I want to see pure martial arts I go see a martial arts competition. However, I definitely believe in martial arts as a viable part of a story telling technique.
Now lets get to Hero. I think we all know the formula of success for an Asian movie by now. 1) Take a piece of Chinese history, and an associated legend 2) Make it look like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. If I was as pretentious as the movie itself, I would have said "Make it visually similar to the cinematographic style of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." But I am not as pretentious. 3) Add Tarantino's name to it.
Now, to make it better than CTHD. 1) Use an Asian actor who is better known to the American and European audiences. 2) Have more of the "fly-by-wire" fights, but in more beautiful locations. 3) Use plenty of pseudo symbolics.
Oh, and how could I forget the most important part! Since the average European will have difficulty distinguishing between the various Asian male characters, get them all to have different facial hair styles, just to make them more recognizable.
Now to the main part. Why is this a piece of pretentious rubbish? Well, despite the promising settings in feudal China, the story is very weak. Which leaves us with the cinematography and the battles choreography. Cinematography gives us stunning views, and lot's of colour based scenes. We have a red scene, a green scene, a white scene, a... Now, why we have all these scenes is not clear, but they are supposed to be cinematographically (that's not even a real word to be honest) beautiful. They are. Like a beautiful chandelier. A designer bath tub may be. But they have no substance. No emotion behind the colouring and sets and no feelings. Imagine the difference between spotting a beautiful kitchen set and Aivazovski's "Decuman Wave" (or any other true work of art), and you will know what I am talking about. Talking about the battles. Let's not talk about them. Slow-mo, hang-by-wire and fly around, clip the water surface with your sword because it makes a beautiful shot, and then go for the standard kill are just not worth talking about.
So, to recap - we are talking about pretentious, trying too hard, somewhat beautiful trash.
3/10. Asian cinema is really so much better than this.