All Under Heaven

Rating: 9/10 (31 July 2012)

"Hero" is a Chinese wuxia film set during the Warring States Period, the era during the third, fourth and fifth centuries BC when China was divided into several rival kingdoms. The action takes place towards the end of this period when only two powerful states remained, Qin and Zhao. (Pronounced Chin and Chao). The King of Qin has recently survived an attempt on his life by three warriors (two male, one female) in the pay of the King of Zhao, and has offered a rich reward to anyone who can kill the assassins- Long Sky (male), Flying Snow (female) and Broken Sword (male).
A minor government official comes forward claiming to have slain the three assassins. (We never learn his name, and he is referred to as "Nameless"). He produces their weapons to prove his feat, is acclaimed as the "hero" of the title and is granted an audience with the king in order to tell his story. We see in flashback how Nameless killed, or claims to have killed, the three. As he recounts his story, however, the king begins to doubt the truthfulness of what he is being told. He begins to suspect that Nameless himself may be an assassin in the pay of Zhao and that the other three may have sacrificed their lives by allowing themselves to be killed, thus allowing Nameless to gain access to the king in order to make his own assassination attempt. The king's suspicions are partly justified, but there are to be some more surprising twists.
The film has much in common with two other wuxia dramas from the early 2000s, Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" from 2000 and "House of the Flying Daggers", also directed by Zhang Yimou, from 2004. All three films make use of balletic martial arts sequences, often involving the actors "flying" through the air on wires. As in "House of the Flying Daggers", Zhang makes symbolic use of colour, although in a slightly different way. In "Flying Daggers" the whole film, apart from two key scenes at the beginning and the end in which red, pink and white predominated, was dominated by a colour scheme of green, gold and silver.
"Hero" is divided into five sections, each dominated by a particular colour, black, red, blue, white and green. The significance of these colours is that each section represents a different stage in the narration, or a different aspect of the story. Black is used to relate Nameless's fight with Long Sky, a story which is part of his elaborate scheme but which does contain some elements of the truth. Red is used for his account of how he killed Flying Snow and Broken Sword, an account which is later exposed as a total fabrication. Blue is used for the king's surmise about what the true state of affairs might be. Green is another flashback into the past, and white represents the final denouement in which the truth is revealed.
Politically, the film has come in for some criticism from abroad. At the end we learn that Nameless and Broken Sword, although both are citizens of the Kingdom of Zhao, have agreed to spare the king's life because only he is capable of uniting China and thus putting an end to the interminable, internecine fighting between the Warring States. The king is revealed to be Qin Shi Huang Di, the man who did indeed unite China and is regarded as the first Emperor. The phrase "Tianxia", a key concept in the film, is translated in the English subtitles as "our land", a translation which has led some to see the film as a celebration of Chinese nationalism and an implied criticism of Tibetan separatists or the Taiwanese independence movement. It has been claimed, however, that a more accurate translation would be "all under heaven", or "the world", and that the film is therefore a plea for world peace rather than Chinese unity. There is, however, an implication that peace and stability can only be assured by a strong ruler or an authoritarian system of government, a message which cannot have been unwelcome to the Chinese Communist Party.
Despite its tendentious political message, however, "Hero" is a fine film. Apart from its physical beauty, it has many other virtues. The plot is an ingenious one, with a complicated, structure, yet unlike some such films it never becomes too labyrinthine or difficult to follow. There is also some compelling acting, especially from Chen Daoming, an actor I had not come across before, as the King. I would rate "Hero" on a par with "House of the Flying Daggers", or some of Zhang's earlier work such as "Raise the Red Lantern". 9/10