Merely beautiful?

Rating: 8/10 (9 May 2006)

"Hero" is a beautiful movie, as all Zhang Yimou movies are. There are spectacular outdoor, epic-like scenes, and wondrously colorful costumes and fabrics (and swords!) in addition to the choreographed sword play. I would also note that this movie was his most successful American box office flick--and therein lies a problem.
Zhang Yimou is a great artist. He uses the silver screen the way a Michelangelo or Rembrandt uses a canvas. His sense of color and line and composition would cause Da Vinci or Picasso or any of the great Renaissance masters to sit up and take notice were they around today. His films are universally admired not only for their visual artistry but--and this is where I take exception to the direction in which that this film suggests that Zhang Yimou is going--their story-telling ability and their unusual sensitivity to the human condition. Here we have a fantasy of Chinese history brought to life. We have supernatural swordplay--beautifully, hauntingly done, to be sure: sword play as ballet--but what we don't have is a real human story.
This is more like a legend. The great King of Qin, threatened by three great warriors--Sky, Broken Sword, and Flying Snow--is now threatened by a third, the Nameless one (like somebody out of a Clint Eastwood movie), who has pretended to vanquish the other three as a means to get within ten paces of the hated King in order to slay him. This is history as seen from the point of view of Great Men, not history as the force of events and conditions greater than any single person. This is also history as myth. It is nationalistic: the great Chinese king unites "our land" in a great historical event in which the Chinese people can take pride.
It also glorifies war. The great gray mass of soldiers in the service of the king (Zhang Yimou actually used something like 18,000 soldiers from the Revolutionary Army of the People's Republic of China in the production) represents a force that will go on to triumph over lesser forces. The King of Qin can be seen as the ultimate warlord, the warlord with the largest army and therefore the one who will win.
Yet, there is a sense in which this does not sit well with Zhang Yimou. He likes the individual heroes, and indeed would have Nameless achieve his personal victory except that Nameless sees in the end that killing the king would not be a victory at all. Furthermore, Zhang Yimou celebrates in the choreographed sword dances of his heroes the indomitable human spirit that will in the long run, triumph over the forces of sheer might. We can see this in not only the beauty of the dances, but in the association of calligraphy--that uniquely human art form--with the play of the sword. He who practices calligraphy with his heart and soul also learns the secrets of the sword.
My problem with all this is that just prior to seeing this film I viewed Hotel Rwanda (2004) in which ironically the horrendous human slaughter in Rwanda was achieved in large part through the use of machetes made in China. Can we celebrate the sword about which it is said: if you live by the sword you will die by the sword? These are words that have only a tiny impact to us compared to what they meant to the people of 2,000 years ago who actually knew what it meant to die by the sword. Or should we more correctly celebrate the word, not the sword? For it is also said that the word is mightier than the sword.
I think Zhang Yimou knows this, and I suspect part of what he wanted to convey in this film is that sort of message. However, I think his love of beauty and his sense of what works cinematically overcame what he might have intended, and instead of a great film we have one that is merely beautiful.
But by all means see this. See this for his artistry of course. See this to compare it to the legendary kung fu movies. See this for Jet Li who plays Nameless and is a great favorite of the Chinese cinema, and for Daoming Chen who plays the king. And see this for the beautiful actresses Maggie Cheung, who plays Flying Snow, and Ziyi Zhang, who plays Moon. And last but not least, see this for Tony Leung Chiu Wai who plays the enigmatic Broken Sword.
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)