HERO
(2002, Zhang Yimou, China) [73 out of 100]
Zhang Yimou has always been a director obsessed with colour - most notebly in his 1991 masterpiece, Raise The Red Lantern. In Hero (finally making its US debut after two years of studio haggling and corporate/political redtape - and thanx to Asian Film connoiseur Quentin Tarantino), Zhang has gone beyond the passions of red and now incorporates vivid blues, yellows and whites into this visually spectacular melange of art film, martial arts and epic mythology.
-September 20, 2004
The story of an assassin, who has been commissioned by the would-be Emperor of a still young and ununified China, to stop those that oppose this warlord's militaristic intentions. The assassin, down-played with methodic somberness by Jet Li, first appears on screen being led in to the palace, to hold court with the King. Seated across the great hall (just far enough away as to not be a mortal threat), the Assassin begins to unravel his tales of how he killed each of the three rebels that he sought - each time being allowed to come closer to the King. Finally he sits within ten paces of the King (close enough to kill him).
Told in alternate versions, a la Kurosawa's Rashomon, with a fresh colour washing over the pallet with each new alteration, we are shown great battles between Jet Li's Assassin and his enemies - played by Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, again paired as lovers. All these undeniably fantastical battles are masterfully and beautifully choreographed amongst the throngs of colour. As one character kills another, the leaves falling off the trees surrounding them go from brown to a deep dark intense blood red. Simply put - this is a visually incredible film.
Although the story is easily transparent and mundane (and possibly even some sort of latent Communist Propaganda), and if you don't see this ending coming ten and a half miles away, you cannot call yourself a Cinephile - it is the visual beauty of Hero that brings Zhang Yimou out of a decade long mediocrity and has thrust him back into that old realm of mystical Auteur.