In the realm of Chinese cinema, few directors are more important than Zhang Yimou. The director has been responsible for several modern masterpieces and some of the best reviewed films from any country in the last 20 years. In his four star review of Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern, Roger Ebert called it “A Chinese film of voluptuous physical beauty and angry passions, and indeed it is. The director’s near flawless eye for beauty was also used to create wonderful images in To Live (1994), The Story of Qiu Ju (1992), and Ju Dou (1990).
In the case, of Yimou’s highest grossing film stateside, a couple of events happened that changed the way the world looked at Asian cinema. First was the release of the Wachowski Brothers’ The Matrix. While two poorly received sequels have hurt the original film’s reputation, it’s hard to deny that the picture helped to solidify a wave of excitement toward Martial Arts and Eastern cinema. The coming out party for the choreography of Master Yuen Woo Ping gave new audiences a taste of a cinema that fans of his films such as Fist of Legend and Drunken Master had already known for some time.
Next, Martial Arts cinema reached a height it had never seen before in 2000 with Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Ang Lee’s masterpiece may have had weightless fights, but had more heart than most of its contemporaries. After world wide acclaim, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon set many box office records and also became the foreign film with most Academy Award nominations ever with ten, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Taking note of Ang Lee’s success, Yimou would go on to make his own Martial Arts epic, the first of his career. Yimou would even go on to make a film that would be better received by critics and audiences in China than Crouching Tiger would. Taking a similar story to that of Chen Kaige’s The Emperor and the Assassin, Director Zhang Yimou would expand on this story to a degree by adding in fictitious characters, while lessening much of the political content that was present in Kaige’s picture. Very loosely based on the story of Ying Zheng’s rise to become the first Emperor of China, Yimou’s Martial Arts film Hero would come to rival Crouching Tiger in visual artistry while still making a very accessible story for world wide audiences.
Hero Starring Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Daoming Chen, and Donnie Yen. Directed by Zhang Yimou.
Boasting a cast that would make any Eastern film maker’s heartbeat quicken, Hero tells the story of a man with no name. Played by Jet Li, this man is an official from a small province with a mission of mysterious intent. Rumor reaches the King of Qin that this nameless man has ridded China of its deadliest assassins. In this version of one of China’s most important moments in history, the character of Jing Ke does not exist. Instead we are given several assassins, including the deadliest, Sky (Donnie Yen), Broken Sword (Tony Leung) and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung).
It is obvious here even with just learning these names that Yimou has abandoned the hard historical elements of The Emperor and the Assassin for a more lyrical style. Arriving at the palace of Ying Zheng, Nameless is greeted by thousands of guards. This shot is surreal in it enormity. Looking at the shot, one would assume that the men were all CGI. Films such as Return of the King or Troy contain similar shots, but both include far less actual actors than computer generated one. This assumption would be incorrect for Hero, as Director Yimou used Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldiers here as the warriors of Qin. Apparently the director ended up using 18,000 of them, and uses them well here. This shot of endless soldiers is then countered with Ying Zheng’s court, which is completely empty except for Daoming Chen’s Emperor.
This film is a real breakthrough for Jet Li. While Li has enjoyed stardom in his native Hong Kong and a cult following in America for films such as Fist of Legend, My Father is a Hero and Once Upon a Time in China, Li has never really been known for his dramatic work. One wonders what would have happened to the actor if he had accepted the role of Master Li Mu Bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which eventually went to Chow Yun Fat. He instead starred in the modest hit Romeo Must Die and the horrible film, The One. Hero let him shine in a role that allowed him to do some of the best work of his career.
Of course much of his role has him fighting with one opponent after another, all told in flashback. Nameless regales the King of Qin with stories of defeating the three dangerous assassins. The first cinematic showdown between Li and Donny Yen, two of Hong Kong’s biggest stars, was much hyped when the film went into production. The two had not fought on screen since the second Once Upon a Time in China entry and fans were not let down with their encounter here. Shot partly in black and white and using a beautifully constructed pallet of rain, CGI, and wire work, the sequence is completely mesmerizing. Kung fu fans get what they wanted to see, and the Art film crowd is no less entertained. This is the best fight in the film, relying more on the skills of these combatants than the rest of the film’s action does.
When Nameless begins to tell the tale of defeating Broken Sword and Flying Snow, the film’s color motif really comes into place. Throughout each of the Rashomon style flashbacks, a different appropriate color theme is used. The most beautiful red permeates this entire sequence, followed by flashbacks of blue, green and white. I don’t want to go too much further into the plot, as it would reveal too much about outcomes and motivations.
Suffice it to say that each performer is able to show their entire dramatic range. Tony Leung here is somewhere in between the righteous gun slinger of the John Woo epics Hard Boiled and Bullet in the Head and the unrequited lover of Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love and 2046. The actor gracefully glides from one sequence to the next as his jealous adulterer in the “red” is miles away from the tender inamorato of the “blue” scenes.
The same goes for Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi whose Flying Snow and Moon range from combatants to compatriots from scene to scene. Zhang Ziyi finds notes here that I have never witnessed in any of her past performances. In each section, Maggie Cheung provides a solid performance that always has her being a patriot to her homeland, but gives her shades of gray with which to take Flying Snow’s intentions.
Absolutely wondrous Martial Arts sequences provide cinema lovers unique visuals, especially for an Action picture. A fight among trees within the “red” sequence may be the best use of a color scheme since Akira Kursoawa’s Ran. Another stunning sequence during the “green” portion of the picture features huge flowing curtains as a backdrop while Broken Sword and the Emperor do battle in his main hall. During the fight scene atop a lake, Tony Leung actually tore a ligament while doing battle with Jet Li’s nameless warrior. Apparently this only delayed the picture a single day.
Where the film goes under scrutiny is with its depiction of the Emperor. I applaud film makers for not making the man a raving lunatic, but there is deepness to the role that is not as present here as it is in The Emperor and the Assassin. Hero shows the man as a noble man with noble intentions, but does not investigate deep enough into the his methods. The film tends to gloss over the thousands that die for an ending that is a bit pat when scrutinized a second time. This takes away from a picture that up to that point is both entertaining and quite thought provoking.
Also with each section containing many truths and half truths, characters motivations can be completely falsely represented. This takes away from our own emotions, as characters we’ve believed in, may or may not be as trustworthy as we were lead to believe. This takes away from the film’s impact in a way that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or The Emperor and the Assassin never do.
Unfortunately, American fans of the movie would have to wait two years after it wrapped to be able to see the film domestically. After feeling foolish by turning down the most successful foreign film of all time with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the honchos at Miramax bought up several Chinese films looking for the next big hit, one of which was Hero. They then proceeded to not release the film, fearing box office disaster. It took intervention from Quentin Tarantino to get the film released uncut and the film went on to a healthy box office Stateside.
Despite its faults, Hero is still an incredible film and an interesting bookend to Chen Kaige’s film looking at the same man. The visual artistry in this picture rivals any ever seen as Zhang Yimou weaves a complicated tale that boasts more vivid color than ten Hollywood blockbusters. The film’s history may be fabricated, but the entertainment value here is genuine.
Picture Credits: impawards.com, cinema.com
