Been There, Done That

Rating: 3/10 (31 August 2004)

Having seen both "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and both "Kill Bill" movies over the last two years, it's regrettable that acrobatic high-wire swordplay scenes don't impress me as much as they used to.
I know going in to see "Hero" that I would be comparing it to "Crouching Tiger"; most of us who have seen both of these films have in common the fact that we are typical Westerners who don't see very many Asian films. The comparison is inevitable, there simply is no other frame of reference.
That being said, there's no denying the power of the drama that the plot of "Hero" presented. The pageantry, the scope and the depth of the characters justify the many foreign film awards it has won. Add to that the fact that this is the most expensive movie ever produced in China, and you have a textbook definition of the work "epic".
I would like to think that I am capable of seeing the forest for the trees when it comes to movies like this - which is to say, lift my preferences out of the slam-bang action flicks or lowbrow comedies that are the usual fare for summer audiences. But the truth is, by the time "Hero" went into its last half hour, I was bored. Watching the same scenes play out from different perspectives got tiresome. (But I will say that having the characters' outfits change color depending on the mood of the moment was a nice cinematic touch.) The story line became a kind of Kurosawa-meets-Shakespeare plot of betrayal and assassination, and by the time the movie ended, I found myself not even caring which side won or who lived and died.
Take my review for what it's worth - that of a average Joe who tried for two hours to raise his intellectual bar to a level where he could see where all the critics' four- and five-star ratings were coming from, but was ultimately unable to do it. I have no doubt that many people will succeed where I failed, and they will no doubt enjoy this movie a lot more than I did.
My score: 6/10.