Ying Xiong

[annuin]

Saturday night we went to see Hero. We had originally planned on doing that on Friday night, but someone defacing GN put a stop to that, and had PreZ fixing up a bunch of Ikonboard's security holes.

When we did finally see it, it was well worth the wait, both of that one extra day, and the weeks we've put off seeing it or haven't had the time to.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it's about Nameless, a lowly local official who claims to have defeated the 3 best assassins who have for years been trying to kill the King of Qin. Nameless is summoned to the palace to tell the King his tale, and after each one he is allowed closer to the King. There he tells each tale through flashback sequences. However, the King doesn't quite believe all of Nameless's stories, nor his motives, and relates to Nameless what he thinks happened.

I think this definitely ranks as the most stunning piece of cinema I've seen all year. Visually it's gorgeous, from the intimidating rows of soldiers and courtiers that Nameless must walk past on his way to visit with the King of Qin, to the glorious use of colour in each of the stories told, in both the costumes and scenery. The colours all having a specific meaning, red for passion, blue for love, green for youth, white for truth and black for death.

Maggie Cheung as Falling Snow is gorgeous, absolutely stunning, especially in her red dress. The calligraphy school in the red sequence is also a lovely interior, one I'd love to have. All actors put on some great performances, and the scenes between Broken Sword and Falling Snow are very well performed and emotional when required.

The fight scenes are beautifully choreographed, with amazing wirework. The scene where Nameless and Falling Snow fend off the arrows from Qin's attacking army is impressive to watch, as is the lake fight scene where Broken Sword and Nameless face off. My personal favourite though is probably the fight between Falling Snow and Moon, both dressed in red garb fighting amidst the vibrantly yellow autumn foliage. It's probably not the most impressive fight sequence in the movie, but the colour juxtaposition is stunning, especially when the leaves turn colour at the climax of the fight.

If Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon took your fancy, odds are that this is something you'll enjoy watching. If you like your martial arts movies more along the ass-kicking-with-big-explosions, then this most likely isn't for you. Generally I found the film to be quite tranquil, much like Crouching Tiger. This isn't to say nothing happens in it, but it's just the kind of mood it seemed to evoke in me. I wonder if that's what made the only two other people who were in the theater with us leave about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through (during the green sequence). Or good film-making is just lost on people like that, though credit where it's due... they still bought tickets to see a movie that was advertised explicitly at the box office as being foreign and subtitled, a fact which in and of itself will probably have killed off a lot of it's sales potential, regardless of whether or not Quentin Tarantino "presented" it.

Comments

[passercul.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I saw Hero when it was released here, perhaps a year and a half ago.

This reminds me-- I want the soundtrack! :"D


The man-shaped hole in the 10,000,000 arrows was hilarious.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I loved it to bits :D

I thought white was the colour of death in Chinese culture?

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

That's Indian culture. Or at least I know that they use white as a mourning colour.

The colour symbolism was part of imdb.com's trivia facts.

[silverthoughts.livejournal.com]

White is death and always used in funerals. That's why no Chinese person would ever wear a white thing in their hair.

[darktor.livejournal.com]

White is a mourning colour.

[silverthoughts.livejournal.com]

I loved this movie more than Crouching Tiger. Tony Leung just blows my mind.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, both PreZ and I liked it more too. I think it might also be because CTHD was our first foray into the wirework martial arts movies, so it was also a case of getting used to the style a bit.

Though I think I preferred the story in this movie more, as well as visually it's much prettier.

As in both movies, Zhang Ziyi plays a snotty upstart :P She's more likeable in this, but she always looks so defiant and acts that way too.

and now I'll ramble because I love this film so much I watch it a lot on DVD even

[silverthoughts.livejournal.com]

The problem with CTHD was that none of the actors except for Zhang Ziyi had any martial arts background. And Ang Lee's vision of martial arts was (in his words) "a ballet" which he tried to convey on screen but failed, in my opinion. I understood he tried to make it dance like but it didn't translate well on screen. Sometimes when someone sees something in one's head, it doesn't always look well in real life. The audiences in HK panned it for the ridiculous martial arts. The theater I went to laughed and it wasn't the only one. A newspaper said "only Americans would appreciate this so-called Chinese kung fu". But that aside, CTHD's strength was the characters and the relationships they must maintain. This is oddly, one of Ang Lee's strengths in all the films he's ever done and CTHD, in that regard was a stronger film in terms of relationships and character development.

But I still liked Hero more. The film was comprised of three people with martial arts backgrounds (Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi and Danny Yeo) so their technique was focused upon by the director. Thus why their fight sequences were the most inventive of any martial arts films I've ever seen. Including Jet Li's own Once Upon A Time In China because a long time ago I thought his fight scene on the ladders was impressive. Zhang Ziymou is also one of the most cinematographically beautiful directors in China with all his films that leave you with a deep political meaning. His films are often banned in China for conveying politics. And this film was no exception in it's political message. That they were all heros. Zhang Ziyi, Jet Li, Tony Leung, Danny Yeo, Maggie Cheung. Even the king with all the horrible things he did in history. But it's what happens after they are long dead that make heroes become villians because no one understood their prime purpose. The use of colors was not only symbolic but an ode to Kirosawa's Roshoman.

This was an amazing film. I would have considered this as strong as his Raise the Red Lantern. It's just disappointing he followed up with a disappointing House of Flying Daggers.