Originally published 9/13/04
Hero
Director: Zhang Yimou
Writers: Feng Li, Bin Wang, Zhang Yimou
Producer: Bill Kong, Zhang Yimou
Stars: Jet Li, Daoming Chen, Tony Leung Chu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Donnie Yen, Zhang Ziyi
You begin with the premise that all movie action is inherently a lie. Outrunning explosions in slow-motion, having vicious fistfights that never leave a bruise – these are contrivances that are at the service of the art. What really matters is: what kind of art is being served?
Like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon before it, Hero (an international hit for the last two years only now getting stateside release by Miramax) comes to us with a treatment of violence that challenges us as moviegoers. It is more like a ballet than a fight, the participants are not so much opponents as trusting partners working in harmony to express a feeling. In this movie, the clash of swords can express vengeance, serenity, rage, sorrow, disdain, conspiracy, love. And it does so in the service of a story that seems at once epic and fable.
It has been ten years since the King of Qin (Daoming Chen) has had a decent night’s sleep. He dreams of conquering the six other kingdoms and unifying China, and with his intimidating army, it seems within his grasp to do it. So he is constantly at risk of assassination – three years ago an attempt nearly succeeded, and he is still not sure why it didn’t. Now he never removes his armor, and no one can come within 100 paces of him.
But today he makes an exception. A local prefect, a swordsman known only as Nameless (Jet Li), comes bearing proof that he has killed the three deadliest assassins in the land – Sky (Donnie Yen), Snow (Maggie Cheung), and Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chu Wai). The King wants to hear how Nameless achieved this, and when he is satisfied with each story, he will reward Nameless with gold, land and permission to move closer so they may drink together in celebration.
What follows is more than a little like Akira Kurosawa’s convention-shattering Rashomon, where we hear one version of events, then another, and still another, as we move closer to what may be the truth. It is only when Nameless has been invited an unprecedented 10 paces from the King that the King begins to realize an important angle – that any man who maneuvers his way into this position through such improbable claims could be a very clever assassin himself.
We jump back and forth from scenes of Nameless’ adventures – full of passion and intrigue and gorgeous violence, to the throne room, where two figures sit absolutely still, taking each others’ measure, gauging each others’ intentions. The King asks questions, and Nameless answers them, his tone of obedient respect never wavering even as the content of the conversation changes. It’s a legitimate debate which half of the movie is the more exciting.
What lingers in the memory about the fight sequences is more than just the maneuvers. We remember color and motion, billowing fabric, falling leaves, the percussive sound of raindrops on stones. Director Zhang Yimou (Shanghai Triad, Raise the Red Lantern) has always been as much painter as photographer, and creates a strong visual palette for each of his movies. Hero is like an album of masterworks, or a jog through a gallery wing – each stretch of the movie has its own signature color and style. Strikingly, a library where a key conversation took place is a different color in every new variation of the story.
Each of the leads has a long track record in Hong Kong action cinema, and each delivers not only physically (we remember once again how there’s wire-fu, and there’s great wire-fu), but emotionally. What a challenge it is, for the assassins, to create a character out of a patchwork of fiction, revealing common truths underneath each new iteration of fancy. Whether through the peculiarities of subtitling or the strength of the original script, all dialogue is effectively blunt and unadorned. Verbal communication is not where any of them do the real work of sharing their feelings. For that, you have to watch the swords.
In one sequence, Sky creates miniature whirlwinds with the speed of hers, lifting her attacker off the ground and trapping her in a tornado of autumn leaves. In another, she and Nameless stand on a roof, deflecting at blinding speed a black storm of thousands of arrows being fired by an army. Beneath the roof, a calligraphy teacher defiantly continues his lesson, serenely sketching letters in the sand as arrows thunk into the walls all around him. Nameless and Broken Sword duel while seemingly floating above a lake, using the tips of their weapons to skip off the surface of the water.
Yes, it’s all a preposterous affront to physics. But remember our premise – why, in an art form that has posited to us that space ships having laser dogfights can be heard in a vacuum, or that an alien could evolve that has acid for blood, or that bullets always hit the bad guy in the head but the good guy in the shoulder, should we discriminate against this? Hero is relating to us a legend, one of the defining stories of the Chinese culture, in an arresting, frequently breathtaking style. And in the service of that, not only will I accept impossible feats of martial arts agility, I’ll applaud them.