It could have been better...it could have been worse

Rating: 7/10 (5 December 2004)

When I watched Hero the first time, I left with an overwhelming feeling of disappointment. Hero is, by no means, a great movie. At best, it is mediocre. At worst, it flat out sucked. While all outward appearances would indicate this movie was made to match Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (which I thought was only a bit better than mediocre as well), it fell far short of its target. It has the production values--great costumes and use of color, amazing cinematography, excellent fight choreography, an all-star cast, a talented director, and all the other makings of a great movie. But none of these things could make up for its greatest flaw. Like all other "westernized" Chinese movies these days (CTHD being the first, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Warriors of Heaven and Earth, Shaolin Soccer, etc.) the story is sadly found wanting, some more than others. Without doubt, Hero falls into the middle of the pack.
My gripes with Hero's story is its meaningless, meandering nature. Like all other westernized Chinese movies, it was made to make money, to showcase incredible eyecandy and cool fight scenes. But note that every year, dozens of such movies are made in Hong Kong, since Shaw Brothers and the golden age of kung fu movies in the 60's and 70's. Western and westernized audiences will probably find these movies great, but only because they do not know how to tell a diamond from a cubic. Then again, because Chinese culture and history is so great (in terms of size), it may be that western and westernized audiences will not understand what makes a diamond like Once Upon a Time in China a diamond and not a cubic.
Hero takes place during the Qin dynasty near the end of the Warring States period. The Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, was a ruthless tyrant who stopped at nothing to completely conquer all of China. Partly out of fear of what should happen should this emperor defeat the other states, partly because it was the way of things in that day and age, assassins from the other states decided to attempt to assassinate the Qin Emperor. Hero is about the journey of a group of elite assassins in their bid to kill the Qin Emperor.
My disagreement with the political message the PRC government required to be included in the movie before allowing it to be produced aside, I found the story boring and trite. For one, it attempts to redefine the meaning of "hero" by labeling certain characters heroic when they really did not fit into the idea of being a hero, on top of an overused cliché of the hero. In effect, Jet Li and Tony Leung's characters are fake heroes, or ones created and honored only by their enemies--which left me in a state of limbo. Was Jet Li the hero or the anti-hero? Knowing Chinese history, and thus what was to come after the events of the movie, it is difficult to say.
My next comment is that the story doesn't really move. Much of the movie is a flashback, but most of the flashbacks don't really advance anything, except perhaps the intrigue that is supposed to surround the characters. Unfortunately, because of this, it feels as if the plot is moving in circles. While there's nothing wrong with one big circle, Hero seems determined to traverse the same circle several times, each time offering slightly more insight into what happened that the previous traversal did not offer. A whole hour is wasted in the movie doing this.
Finally, while the acting by most of the cast is above par, the movie offers no opportunity to actually relate to them. Thus, the outcome seems trivial and unimportant. Indeed, throughout all of the supposedly emotional scenes, I knew I was supposed to be feeling something for the characters, but there simply was nothing to emotionally grasp. For example, when the character played by Donnie Yen dies early on in the movie while fighting Jet Li, there is supposed to be sadness at his passing, for the character was considered a great hero of his people. Yet, it seemed almost as if the movie shrugged it off. Again, I blame the story for not developing the characters more.
In the end, I must admit that it wasn't ridiculously terrible, and that it is still quite watchable--as much so as CTHD in fact, which may or may not be a good thing. It is merely unfortunate that it does not live up to its hype, or for that matter, its potential. I would have to say that watching one of Jet Li's B-movie, The Evil Cult would be far more entertaining than watching Hero. Even though the story was left hanging for a part two that was never made, the screenplay was adapted well (albeit very loosely) for the 1.5-hour format, and even though some of the characters were introduced late into the movie, they still had far more personality than the characters in Hero.