Hero (2002)
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Hero (aka "Ying xiong") (2002) Directed by Zhang Yimou Plot: Hero is two-time Academy Award nominee Zhang Yimou's directorial attempt at exploring the concept of a Chinese hero. During the peak of their Warring States period, China was divided into seven kingdoms all fighting for supremacy. Most determined to dominate China was the Kingdom of Qin, whose King (Chen Daoming) was wholly obsessed with becoming the first emperor of China. Though he was an assassination target for many, none of his would-be-killers inspired as much fear as the legendary assassins Broken Sword (Tony Leung), Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung), and Sky (Donnie Yen). In hopes of thwarting his death, the King (Daoming) promised endless wealth and power to anyone who defeats his would-be murderers. No results come until ten years later, when a man called Nameless (Jet Li) brought the weapons of the three assassins to the Qin King's palace. Nameless claimed to be an expert swordsman who had defeated Sky and destroyed the famed duo of Flying Snow and Broken Sword by using their love for one another against them. Once Nameless comes face to face with the King, however, it looks as if the situation is more complicated than he had thought. Also featured in Hero is actress Zhang Ziyi (The Road Home) as Broken Sword's devoted servant, Moon. Starring: Jet Li: www.jetli.com Tony Leung Chiu Wai newyork.tribe.net/thread/74...2f73a359a4 Maggie Cheung Zhang Ziyi: www.helloziyi.com Daoming Chen Donnie Yen: www.donnieyen.com Director of Photography: Christopher Doyle One of my complaints with the "Quentin Tarantino Presents" version of this film is the translation of "Our Land" the two words Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai writes to Nameless (Jet Li). Broken Sword writes 2 characters in the sand "Heaven" and "Earth." The version I've seen translates this as "All Under Heaven." Tarantino's "Our Land" sounds like "This Land is your Land this Land is Our Land..." for more info: newyork.tribe.net/thread/39...a5f20395ac Monkey Peaches: www.monkeypeaches.com/Hero.html Miramax Site: www.miramax.com/hero/index.html Chinese DVD Region 3: www.monkeypeaches.com/040728A.html Amazon: www.amazon.com/exec/obido...564-8188649 Related articles: Robert Y. Eng University of Redlands www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp Others, however, have suggested that Hero presents a much more ambiguous perspective. Cindy Fuchs states in Philadelphia City Paper: "Zhang has recently been portrayed as a "sellout" for Hero's "sympathetic" view of China's first emperor. But the film is more complicated than this description suggests ... Hero displays and deconstructs the very process of making history, insisting on the ways that deception, self-interest and self-delusion influence not only individuals but also national identities. Finding poetry in both mendacity and veracity, it investigates not the means or end, but the limits of honor, the concept at the heart of wuxia, imperialism and nationalism." In Salon, Charles Taylor comments on whether Zhang Yimou was guilty "of everything from making a movie that kowtows to power to one that embraces fascistic nationalism," as charged by his critics: "Apart from the offensiveness of charging a filmmaker whose films have been banned by the Chinese government -- and who has been prevented from traveling to collect the honors those films have garnered -- of suddenly licking the government's feet, the anti-Hero arguments don't take into account that the film ends not in a surge of patriotic feeling but on a pronounced mournful note of contingency and skepticism. And they ignore how the movie forces the King to live up to the ideology he so glibly spouts about sacrificing the happiness of the individual for the good of all. In our final glimpse of the King, the man has been dwarfed by the trappings of his power." source: Is HERO a Paean to Authoritarianism? www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp Jet Li on Hero: newyork.tribe.net/thread/bc...41ddc36d1e How `Hero' ended up on DVD first: newyork.tribe.net/thread/39...a5f20395ac Making of a Hero: Expectations are sky-high for director Zhang Yimou's ambitious star-studded martial-arts flick: newyork.tribe.net/thread/71...0d9e9ac24d Cracking the Color Code of 'Hero' newyork.tribe.net/thread/39...a5f20395ac The Legend of Drunken Master (Interview with Christopher Doyle): newyork.tribe.net/thread/50...4666ef71e2 What Is a Foreign Movie Now? By A. O. SCOTT: newyork.tribe.net/thread/be...92b86fcd9e Box Office in a Box: How DVD's are changing everything about Hollywood. By JON GERTNER: newyork.tribe.net/thread/26...3136b3df39 *********************************** Connected Tribes please join! 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