Absorbing Chinese martial arts movie.

Rating: Null/10 (8 March 2005)

"Hero" is about heroes, in battle, each side has its own heroes. Set about 3000 years ago, most of this movie takes place at the palace of the King of Qin, as the warrior Nameless (Jet Li) approaches him to offer to fight for his kingdom, to conquer and rule the surrounding territories. The hope is that unity will be the final result. As Nameless tells his story, we see it in flashback form. Then, back to the two men in the palace, then the next segment of the story is seen in flashback form. Interestingly done in that one flashback may be mostly in reds and oranges, the next in all white, the next in light blue, the color schemes identifying the version of the story, each a bit different, until the truth is finally arrived at. DVD is superb, great sound and great scenes. I watched it in Mandarin with English subtitles.
SPOILERS. Initially Nameless tells the King that he has developed a novel fighting technique and he has killed Sky, Broken Sword, and Flying Snow, three of the most renowned fighters. (These are the kinds that fly or float above the water, as in Chinese lore.) But the King doesn't believe the story, and instead tells his own version, which points to Nameless being there actually to kill the King. He had developed a move that was guaranteed fatal from 10 paces, and that was how close he was now to the King. However, the King made him realize that killing him would hurt all the peoples, since he then would not be able to bring unity, so Nameless resisted and left him safe. Still, he had made a threat to the King, so outside all the Kings warriors shot arrows at Nameless against a far wall, he gave up his life for the people.