Hero
Category: Movies...
Posted Saturday, August 28, 2004 at 10:04 PM [GMT-6]

It took two years to get it to America, but it's worth the wait to now see Hero (or "Ying xiong" in Chinese).

This is an achingly beautiful movie with a convoluted and dramatic plot that keeps you guessing to the very end. It's a worthy follow-on to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and in fact features some of the same actors, most notably Ziyi Zhang, who played Jen in CTHD.

The English-dubbed dialog occasionally suffered from woeful translation (I suspect; I don't speak Mandarin), but the beauty of the cinematography and the scope of the director's vision more than offset this minor distraction.

The martial arts choreography brought nothing new to the screen, impressive though it was, and Jet Li, the hero (or is he?) is not an emotive icon. But I keep coming back to the atmosphere of the movie and find that this is one of the most remarkable movies of the year. I'd watch it again in a heartbeat.

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Comments

I will look out for this film!!!

Posted by: Rachel at August 29, 2004 06:28 PM

Rachel, if you liked "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," you'll like this one, too.

Posted by: Eric at August 30, 2004 08:25 AM

Oo, I've really been looking forward to this one!

Also coming up (also starring Zhang Ziyi) is "House of Flying Daggers." That one looks good, too.

Posted by: Jared at August 30, 2004 02:50 PM

Zhang is a great martial arts actress, but for drop-dead gorgeous AND athletic, Maggie Cheung was stunning in this movie as Flying Snow.

Posted by: Eric at August 30, 2004 06:37 PM
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