Review of Hero (2012) by Daniel K — 26 Jan 2012
3: Not nearly on the same level as House of Flying Daggers, but it is still quite beautiful and memorable. The construction of the story reminds me a bit of Kurosawa's Roshomon, but it isn't nearly as elegant and compelling.
The cast is about as good as it gets: Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung , Zhang Ziyi, Jet Li, etc. All give worthy performances, but none are particularly powerful. Yimou is an extremely interesting director though, mainly because he appears to want to work within the Chinese system, while still retaining his own ideals and style.
In this sense he is somewhat like the old Hollywood studio system era directors. The locations are incredible, the action beautiful, and the colors nearly unimaginable, if only we hadn't seen more vibrant imagery in Yimou's House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower.
No one makes films quite like this, even if Ang Lee and Wong Kar-Wai have both worked in the same area. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is superior, while Ashes in Time seems a bit inferior to me. This, more than any other film in this category, is more over-the-top and incredible than anything that either before or after.
This doesn't mean it's better or that I enjoy it as much, just that it pulls out all the stops. It is, of course, extremely patriotic and supportive of the "One China" policy as well.
This probably is not a coincidence.
This review of Hero (2012) was written by Daniel K on 26 Jan 2012.
Hero has generally received positive reviews.
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