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Birthday
• 1983-08-05
Gender
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Male
Location
• Vancouver, BC
Member Since
• 2003-08-02
Occupation
• Writer; Part-Time Hero
Real Name
• James
Personal
Achievements
• Visiting eight different myO friends in person thus far
Anime Fan Since
• Winter 2001
Favorite Anime
• Neon Genesis Evangelion, .hack//SIGN, Naruto, Bleach, Beck, Peacemaker Kurogane, Ranma 1/2 (the guilty pleasure)
Goals
• Visit the myO friends I've missed thus far; complete a cosplay from 300
Hobbies
• Writing, Gaming, Kung Fu, Movies, Acting somewhat strange in general
Talents
• Can recognise most quotes from almost any movie/show on first listen; Can recite the entire 12 days of Christmas by memory
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Saturday, August 28, 2004
Hero (2002): My Review
Alright, I've owned what is most likely a bootleg DVD of Zhang Yimou's film "Hero" or Ying Xiong for over a year now. Hehe . . . there are many, many perks to living on the west coast, what can I say? Anyhoo, I'll just say it now: "Hero" rocks my world and I know it. Though, perhaps not for the reasons you might think . . . now, this'll be long, but I promise I'll barely even talk about what happens in the movie. I'm only writing this up to sort of tell you what you can expect so you don't come out of it going, "what the suck was that?!" You with me so far? Alright, let's rock . . .
Alright, first thing's first, I wanna make this part clear for everyone so that nobody goes into this movie with the wrong mindset:
Hero is an ART film FIRST, martial arts film THIRD or so!
Heh . . . I know, it's not what they're really selling it as, eh? In any case, the fights in the film are definitely awesome, with some incredibly choreography before the film, talent on the film, and wires above the film. The BIG fights really are a great example of Chinese fight cinema at its best (has anyone here ever played any of the "Dynasty Warriors" games? It's kinda like that). The showdowns Jet Li's character has with the others are absolutely stunning, with some great visuals and real smile-inducing, clap-starting stuff. It's great fun, acrobatic, belief-suspending stuff. Of course, there really are a lot fewer fights than you'd think there'd be. Just lettin' you know that now. This film's all about quality, not quantity.
What of the characters? The characters are all pretty likeable. You've got the mysterious swordsman with no name; you've got the possibly potentially maybe evil depending on your position king who shall become the First Emperor of China; you've got the two lovers with different philosophies that are putting them at ends; you've got the little angry girl who wants the one guy but, well . . . yeah; heck, you've even got the silent, barely on-screen assasin who says few words and fights with all kinds of coolness! So yeah, lots of neat characters. Character development? Um . . . . . I'll get back to that.
Story! I haven't said a thing about story! Alright, here's the gist: early Chinese history. The different kingdoms are out to kill each other for supremacy and control of the entire area. The King of Qin (who will later become emperor) has a problem with assasins who wanna kill him. And . . . . . yeah, that's about it. There's some smaller stories here and there, some flashback points to tell this or that - yeah, a lot of this story is told in flashback. Other than that . . . yeah, story's just there to get the movie goin'. It's not what's important (gasp! Did he just say story wasn't important?!).
Heh. . . here's where I start to disillusion people . . . . . story? Not really important. Fights? Cool, but also there to tell the story in full-spectral glory. Dialogue? Ho ho ho! Oh man . . . maybe it won't seem as funny reading subtitles, but if you listen long enough, you'll catch a few things . . .
Dialog . . . it's actually kinda funny, sometimes. When Jet Li and the King are talking to each other, often enough it's all very sharp, concise, and Question A - Answer B. "You did this?" "Yes." "How did you do it?" "With this."
"You forgot about someone." "Who?" "Me!"
Hehe . . . . . plus the fact that the King of Qin is always referring to himself as "Guo Ren" in third person (I think it means Emperor) . . . kinda funny . . . . . but yes, small matter . . .
So what does matter, you ask? THE CINEMATOGRAPHY! There are very few times where I've used the word "beautiful" to describe a film; this one is one of them. The images this film paints are all absolutely gorgeous. I mean, I've spent time trying to find desktop wallpapers of scenes from this film, they're so nice! This includes everything from the big wide shots to the fights to the little intimate moments. THIS is where this film shines - you look at it, and you love it. I'll just say "colours", though I won't say why. It's all just really, really nice.
As for the final ending? There's a few ways to look at it. Certainly there's lots of meaning and all that stuff, but I'll leave that one for you guys. In any case, it's still beautiful.
So, do I reccommend this film? Hell yeah! It's SO worth it, and getting it big numbers'll mean we'll get more Asian films in our theaters!
Though, if I start going around and start hearing people comparing it to "Crouching Tiger" too often, well . . . . . I might need to start crackin' some heads . . . in any case, other than the casting (me loves Zhang Ziyi), this movie is COMPLETELY different from "Crouching Tiger", so I don't wanna hear it, savvy?
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