"Hero"

Rating: 8/10 (27 August 2004)

The sound of beating drums entices the audience to the suspense of the most masterfully produced Chinese movie ever. For even before, 'Hero' had begun and Nameless (Jet Li) had spoken his first lines of the movie, the audience could sense that this would not be a movie without much talking, but one that would rely on the audience to use their senses and emotions to carry them through the intricate yet at first glance seemingly unsophisticated story line.
As unification of China by the King of Qin (Daoming Chen) becomes only a side focus of the movie's murderous plot. At first I was critical that the movie wouldn't work due to its English subtitles, for all speech is done in Chinese, but as the development of the sword fighting develops speech and subtitles become seemingly irrelevant. The plot thickens as Nameless advances toward the King of Qin from the respected one-hundred paces out to a mere ten paces away from the King himself. However, as Nameless advances so does the story behind the movie. The movie's story itself is told in a series of flashbacks by Nameless. Both prior/subsequent and especially during these flashbacks the special effects of material arts and sword-fighting are so often expressed it becomes a welcome tone of the movie, despite realistic or not. The use of dark/contrasting colors with those of vibrant bright colors adds a nice touch to each scene of this epic story. It is initially apparent Nameless has done an important task, killing all three assassins [Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung), and Long Sky (Donnie Yen)] who've been after the King of Qin. Yet unpredictable plot twists and turns lay just one step ahead of the audience at each revelation by Nameless as he enlightens the King of Qin to his anecdote.
Overall I would give this film a four out of five stars (eight out of ten) as it kept me quite captivated and I tremendously enjoyed the surprise outcome. I expect 'Hero' to become just that, a hero of the box-office due to its superb plot twists, great scenes of sword-fighting, and good acting.