Review - Hero (2002)

I've been wanting to watch Hero for a long time. I was under the impression that this movie was similar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which I thought was one of the best movies I'd ever seen. So, I was looking forward to this movie despite the fact that it was directed by the guy who did House of Flying Daggers which is my most hated movie of all time. Surely HoFD was just a fluke. It must take a lot of effort to make a movie as painful as that. I thought no director would be able to make a whole TWO movies that are that bad.

I was *this* close to being wrong.

The movie starts with the main character, Nameless, meeting with the Emperor after having killed the three most deadly assassins in the known world (who were trying to kill the emperor): Flying Snow, Broken Sword, and Sky. The story is told as a series of flashbacks as Nameless and the Emperor converse over tea. However, in an entertaining twist (not too hard to figure out yourself), the first flashback is actually a total lie. The story is revealed by the retelling of these flashbacks, each telling getting closer to the truth until all is finally revealed at the end. I really liked this way of storytelling. It kept me interested and curious to find out what the truth really was and to see how the movie would end. I found myself trying to decipher the truth from the lies as the movie went on.

Despite the creative storytelling, the story being told was rather mediocre. A simple vengeance tale with no turns that I haven't seen before. I believe it was the way the story was told that helped make it interesting. The plot is so thin that it had to be retold multiple times in order to create a feature-length movie. In fact, the movie probably would've been server better if it had ditched it's method of storytelling and developed the plot that was there more.

The characters are one of the biggest faults I consistently have with this director's movies. They do things that make no sense. It feels like I'm watching a chick flick. During one of the fights, a drop of water is splashed on the corpse of a dead character. One of the combatants immediately runs to wipe off the single drop of water (which looked like a tear on her sad face). He does this despite the fact that the other guy is trying to kill him. I get on a real world level that this character feels like life is pointless without his lover, but that's not shown in the film. It's said, but not shown. At no point in the movie do we get an impression about how much he loved her. The characters are all like this, especially Nameless. A classic movie rule is "show, don't tell", which this movie, despite it's visual nature, doesn't follow. It tells us this, it tells us that, and I'm ultimately not convinced when I'm supposed to feel an emotional impact.

The biggest fault I have with the movie is its attempt at dramatic moments (here on referred to as "dramatic"). There are many times where the movie tries to be emotional, dramatic, or touching, but I just end up laughing. A good example would be the fight bewteen Nameless and Sky. After the guards clear out, the two fighters just stand there when a blind musician gets up to make his way out, but Nameless stops him and asks him to play another song. So the old man does so and we've now arbitrarily set up a classic kung fu trope. It doesn't feel like *part* of the film world. It feels like an artificial moment the director wanted to put in there. It's like a kid who wanted to make a kung fu movie like the ones he enjoys by copying the classic, well-done scenes from his favorite movies. He copied them, but all he managed to do was tack these elements onto the film instead of actually integrating them into the film. He tried to make them work without figuring out WHY they worked. It gets worse when, instead of beating the crap out of each other, Nameless and Sky fight "in their minds". The fight is played out in short, black and white clips, representing the battle going on in their heads, but not physically happening. It sounds like a good "moment" in a movie, where two masters face off against one another on a higher plane of skill than a novice, but it does not come off that way. It's not set up in the movie, it just happens. It's so disconnected from reality ("they fought in their minds??") and the rest of the movie, that it does not add to the film, it takes away from it. 

The fight scenes, with the exception of one, also fall to a similar fate as the rest of the movie. Slow motion is used excessively in these fights. Fight scenes are supposed to be exciting. Literally slowing down the fight makes it far less exciting to watch. Slow motion in a fight scene should be used to draw attention to either a particularly important moment like a fatal blow, or to make it easier to see a really cool move. But that's not now it's done here—it's used for everything. Furthermore, the choreography is repetitive and awkward. During one of the fights in particular, the fighters spent most of their time running and jumping around in slow motion. They only attacked each other a few times. It was a very repetitive fight watching them simply fly around over and over again.

Another problem that the movie in general suffers from, as well as the fight scenes, is that of odd jump cuts. In one cut, the fighters may be running away from each other or from some object, in the next cut they'll be right in each others' faces. One fight did this excessively and it disrupts the continuity of the film, making me feel like I'm missing parts of it. Thankfully, the fight scene between Jet Li and Donnie Yen is totally awesome. That fight scene saved this movie for me--it was totally badass. There were some really impressive moves and my eyes had trouble keeping up with the action (courtesy of Jet Li), which is a good thing.

The Wuxia moments in this movie (and the director's other films) also fall flat on their face. In one fight, Nameless and Broken Sword literally smack a droplet of water back and forth like a ping pong ball. The film slows like it's a dramatic, beautiful moment, but I broke up laughing. This is hampered by the fact that the special effects are obviously fake. In the fight between Nameless and Sky, after one of the "dramatic" moments, Nameless charges forward through the rain in slow motion. He's moving so fast, that the rain looks like it's nearly frozen in mid-air and we see Jet Li smack into these floating raindrops as he charges towards Sky. However, the special effects as the raindrops explode upon Jet Li's expressionless face look incredibly fake. I think we're supposed to take these moments as beautiful, but it's not beautiful, it's ridiculous.

A final fault I find in this movie is Jet Li's acting. I don't recall him ever changing facial expressions away from his stoic, souless gaze. During some shots, it works to the character's advantage, but largely I found his character to serve no purpose in the movie. He's completely an emotionless piece of cardboard. You could replace every shot of Jet Li's face with a cardboard cutout and nobody would know the difference. He does such a good job at it that I'm not even mad, I'm actually impressed. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for a better movie.

To the movie's credit, it is very visually striking--lots of use of color and some very aesthetically pleasing visuals. There's a fight scene that takes place entirely upon a lake and it's beautiful to watch the water splashing in the sunlight with the mountains in the background. But these visuals don't do anything for the movie. They're just there to look good. During the separate retellings of the story, the visual color scheme changes from red, to blue, to white. Perhaps this means something to the Chinese viewers, but all I can picture is the director saying, "Oooh! Look how dramatic and artistic I am! I'm such an amazing director!" It's visuals for the sake of visuals rather than the story. The Wuxia moments suffer the same fate.

The fight scene between Jet Li and Donnie Yen is the only thing worthwhile about this movie. It's a slow (literally), boring, senseless movie.

Still better than House of Flying Daggers.

If you would like to purchase this movie (which I doubt you would after reading this review), please do so by visiting the link below.  Disagree with my take on the movie?  Let the world know in the comments below, but post a reasoned argument.

Hero (Two Disc Special Edition Blu-ray + Digital Copy)