Monday, 8 November 2004

Hero

The trailers portray Hero almost as The Matrix in China. That's not the case, though it is a visually impressive film. Colour is a very big part of the effect and helpfully distinguishes between different versions of the same events. I am told that the Chinese war legends are usually tales of "one warrior worth one thousand" and from this point of view it is easy to accept scenes of heroes on both sides of the conflict, say, fending off a storm of arrows with their bare hands or fighting through a massive army three or four soldiers at a time with relatively little effort. Nobody ever looks worn out from the fight, either, but I can't say I noticed at the time.

In summary, Hero is more like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon than The Matrix (and unsurprisingly so).

5/5 - well worth it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I probably missed some of the symbolism
PPS - That's simply due to culture differences.

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