one of the best movies in its genre

Rating: 9/10 (2 July 2004)

'Hero' is one of the best movies in the genre of Asian historic and martial art films, and one of the best movies that I saw lately. The story line is quite familiar to the fans of the Chinese and Japanese film fans - a mix of legend and history from the far Chinese past. We have seen it many times especially in Japanese movies. What is different and special here is the smart use of flashbacks in the story, re-creating and re-discovering the story with new twist every time. The cinematography is absolutely beautiful, one of the best I have ever seen. The fight scenes are good - I am not a big fan of the human flying effects that reign in the genre in the last ten years, but the fight scenes in this film are more than just physical fights, they are confrontation between the characters, melt in same as the dialog ad the rest of the action. The moral of the story makes sense, and is beautifully translated in cinematographic language. I also like the atmosphere of Oriental mystic - certainly commercial, but at least coming from the real source. Indeed, China is the source of some of the best cinema in the last years. The film gets 9/10 on my personal scale.