visual poetry

Rating: 10/10 (8 March 2006)

As a martial artist I am very picky about a lot of things when I go to watch action films. As a movie enthusiast I'm not really looking for much more than good, thoughtful, solid, entertainment. "Hero" is the only movie I can say deserves MORE than a perfect 10. It's not that this movie is good, or is artistic, or stars 2 of my favorite martial artists (Donnie Yen and Jet Li), or is big budget (by HK standards). It's just that this movie BLEW ME AWAY.
So people complain that the martial arts in it is unrealistic. So what? Martial arts is my life, but I don't expect every action movie I see to be realistic. If that were the case, then car chases in films where the cars flip over and crash and immediately explode would not exist. No action film would be innocent of staying completely realistic then. Plus, this story is about a myth, a legend. You expect everything to be real? People say most fights in real life end up on the ground anyway, and if Jet Li and Donnie Yen fought and ended up on the ground, it'd take away from the artistic aesthetic of the film.
Both my parents are half Chinese, my dad speaks Mandarin and Cantonese fluently and my mom speaks Mandarin. They loved this film Even though the Emperor was portrayed in a way that undermined the Chinese view of him, it still doesn't take away from the film. As far as I know, Hero is not a documentary. It's a movie, and the actors portraying the characters do a great job to further the plot. Even if these characters really did exist, historical accuracy was not the point. If it was, why was everything from the sets to the swordplay to the music so poetic? Why was the focus on the characters and their relationships and on the aesthetics and not on this dynasty that existed? Hero is visual poetry, and poems have no use in life other than to please/entice/stimulate/provoke the emotional center of the human spirit. And Hero did just that.