Little short of a masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (29 September 2004)

"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was marvelous and I loved it, but "Hero" is even better and I feel it is little short of a masterpiece. What makes it so is the brilliant combination of superlatives: fine acting and sharp dialogue; exciting fighting sequences and stunning scenery; evocative sound and music; and a breathtaking use of colour and composition. This is quite simply a triumph for Chinese director Zhang Yimou - and the budget was a mere $2 million.
The setting is the Qin kingdom in the 3rd century BC when modern-day China consisted of seven warring kingdoms. An astonishingly proficient warrior known only as Nameless (Jet Li) is brought to meet the Qin emperor (Daoming Chen) on the basis that he has managed to kill the emperor's three most formidable enemies: Sky (Donnie Yen), Broken Sword (Tony Leung) and Flying Snow (Maggie Chueng). The story unfolds in a formal structure involving a series of flashbacks, as Nameless explains to the emperor how he dispatched each foe, but we see the same conflicts in different versions as a result of successive plot twists. As each segment of the tale is told, Nameless moves closer to the solitary emperor - to what end, we can only speculate.
The movie looks sumptuous with magnificent natural settings (including Inner Mongolia) and balletic fight scenes in the rain and the trees, among banners and leaves, and even on water, while the different flashbacks are distinguished by the predominant colour of the scene and the characters' costumes: red (passion), blue (love), green (youth), white (truth), and finally black (death). The sound - whether horses thundering across the countryside, massed soldiers marching into position, swords clashing angrily or arrows winging impossible distances - is terrific, while the original music from Du Tan (who scored "Crouching Tiger .."), with Kodo drummers from Japan, is wonderfully atmospheric. The cast is huge, but the speaking - using classical Chinese grammar but pronunciation in the Mandarin dialect - is confined to less than 10 characters. Besides the actors already named, we have the young and beautiful Zhang Ziyi - another link with "Crouching Tiger.." - as the servant girl Moon.
My only reservation about the movie is political rather than artistic: the use of tyranny is defended on the grounds of nationalism. That apart, I cannot fault this utterly sensational work which for me is up there with such classics as "Lawrence Of Arabia" and "Gladiator".