Movie Review:

Hero

   Zhang Yimou is a Chinese director working in China, so to take issue with him for using film as a medium through which to espouse the tenets of Communism is perhaps a bit unfair.  After all, it is through the support of the Chinese film industry, and thus the Chinese government, that Zhang can work so successfully.  Nevertheless, his new film Hero, while impressively mounted and beautiful to look at, is so unabashedly pro-Communist that I'm surprised no one was handing out books of Mao's poetry at the door.

    It's a shame that the film ends up turning on this message, because the rest of it is really quite good.  The main arc of the film is a series of Rashomon-like dueling flashbacks, which contain nearly all of the film's martiaa arts sequences.  Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, and Donnie Yen fight it out in a variety of configurations, which are by and large entertaining to watch.  Some, such as the lake battle between Li and Leung, are downright gorgeous to take in.

    Zhang's use of color is used to particularly good effect, as it shifts throughout all the flashbacks as one method of instilling them with different meanings.  I won't go on about the particular meanings here so as not to give everything away, but the colors do look great.  (Of course, if you've seen the trailer, which unfathomably summarizes the plot only of the non-flashback sections and thus gives away in 30 seconds what the film takes 45 minutes and a plot twist to reveal, you've already had nearly everything spoiled that can be.  Trailers these days are a joke.)

    Perhaps the most fascinating part of the film is the ongoing discussion about martial arts as a physical extension of the spirit and the heart.  Broken Sword (Leung) is a master calligrapher whose relationship with the sword is related to his relationship with the brush.  Though a lethal assassin, he sees more effectiveness in writing characters in the sand than in a potentially fatal swordfight.  At one point, a hail of arrows breaks the stick he is using to write characters - he responds by grabbing another arrow out of the air, removing the tip, and continuing to write.

    Broken Sword's non-violent message is admirable, and makes the film a very non-traditional martial arts movie - it's more like a message picture with eye candy.  Regrettably, the non-violent message is put in service of the pro-Communist message of sacrificing the few for the many.  It wouldn't be so bad if the film weren't so clumsily rah-rah about the idea, but, sadly, that's not the case.   The ending in particular seems designed to be shown at a recruitment meeting or some such.

    Mysticism is also puzzlingly employed in this film (and others of the wuxia genre). Hero is a martial arts spectacle, but in many cases the special effects obscure the combat.  If martial arts are worth building a film around, why aren't they worth seeing?  Instead, we get scenes like the one in which Li and Cheung combine to personally fend off thousands of arrows, or another in which Cheung is apparently able to create small whirlwinds.  Since seeing Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I've given up on thinking that a wuxia film might explain its characters' supernatural abilities rather than taking them as a given of the genre, but the ability to fly is a minor distraction next to the manipulation of forces of nature.   Such skills seem reserved for the masters and thus are presumably a suggestion that mastery of martial arts means you have total control of yourself and your surroundings, but they still feel questionable from a dramatic perspective.  If you're good enough to bat down thousands of CGI arrows, where's the drama, or even the fun, in seeing you fight?

    Despite that relatively minor complaint, Hero is still well worth a look.  It features surprisingly deep characters and some fun fight scenes, plus a lot of stunning cinematography, composition, and set design.   It's a bit unfortunate that the film falls back on such a cheesy delivery of its message, but this isn't about to sink the film.  Too much of Hero is too strong to let a little hokiness ruin it.  B+

Hero is a Miramax release.  Rated for stylized martial arts violence and a scene of sensuality.