Hero

Technorati Tag(s): Film, Review

Yimou Zhang's Hero will be remembered for two things:

1. The cinematography, which beats Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's by far.

2. Jet Li in an A-film after a series of washouts.

The movie lacks soul. The story, while obviously important to Chinese culture, is not insipring. The characters are barren and devoid of everything that I could call human.

You know how the movie will end about an hour before it actually ends.

But none of that matters. For all of its 99 minutes, you're almost constantly mesmerised by the sheer visual prowess of it all.

In stark contrast, each scene seems to have a specific color. The characters wear clothes matching the color of the set. When it's blue, it's all blue. When it's red, it's all red.

I suspect the colors are meant to portray different emotions, but I'm no artist, so I have no clue.

There are a few goofy Chinese flying-through-the-air moments, a few fights which don't really take place, a few fights which are supposedly fought in the mind (using the Chinese Martial Arts equivalent of ESP, perhaps). Between them, though, there are quite a few arresting fights.

The kickass quotent may not be as high as Crouching Tiger or even any of Boss Bruce Lee's movies, but the fights are by no means dull.

What stays with you throughout, though, is the music. There are no pleasing, happy melodies here--the kind you hear in Lord of the Rings. The score is almost always sad. The undertones are always loss, longing. This film may end on a plea of hope, but its music provides none at all.

If you go watch this film then, do not expect to be overwhelmed by emotion. What will at times overwhelm you, though, is the combination of the right image accompanied with the right sound.

One scene to watch out for is the Army's attack. Those arrows, the sheer quantity of them is menacing.