Hero: the next CTHD? [SPOILERS]

[Liminal Syzygy]

It's definitely in Mandarin.

How was Donnie Yen, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung's Mandarin?

 

[John Crichton]

Re: Re: SPOILERS?

Close, but no cigar.

You're thinking of "A Man called Hero", which I have on DVD. It's a weird little film, with some truly odd battle sequences (It's got NINJA!) in NYC. It's been accused of 'cashing in' on the success of 'the Stormriders', but I think that's a little unfair. It's a little uneven in the plotting, but it's got an amusing story, and some nice F/X for the fight sequences.

Ah, yes! That was it. Thanks, that was driving me nuts.

 

[LostSoul]

Is it going to be as boring as CTHD?

 

[dreaded_beast]

i've seen it. overall a very good and solid movie. in my opinion, the movie is more character driven and plot than action and kung-fu fighting. i believe that most people (american audiences) may disappointed, going to see this movie thinking there will be mainly action, and finding out there is a balance between story and action. i think the overall story is very good, but that may be lost on american audiences looking to see a typical martial arts flick.

 

[Krug]

How was Donnie Yen, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung's Mandarin?

It was all right. You probably won't noticce because their dialogue is hardly essential to the plot.

 

[hong]

Okay, I have now seen the (region 3) DVD of this movie. Thanks to a recent ACCC (Austrian Consumer and Competition Commission) ruling about region encoding being a barrier to competition, we Austrians don't have to worry so much about such things. I love Chinatown grey market importers.

Holy mother of gawd, this movie rocks on a stick. Semi-structured rambling follows.

[POSS. SPOILERS]

The fight scenes were cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet. I'm not exactly a martial arts fan as I think most people would use the phrase, but the way everything was beautifully choreographed, the background music, the cinematography -- it all left a huge imprint in my brane roughly the shape of Jet Li's bootprint. The scene that sticks most in my mind is Jet doing the whirlwind attack routine in the library, ending with him catching the falling teacup on his sword blade. Screw "low magic" and whatnot, THIS is what cinematic swordsmanship is all about.

Did I mention the cinematography? It says on the blurb that they spent around HK$250 million making this film, and it shows. The visuals are absolutely stunning, on par with CTHD or LOTR. Some of the massed army scenes look like they're straight out of The Two Towers.

The storyline was indeed a bit disjointed at times, partly because they're essentially telling 3 different stories in one movie. The characters were slightly underdeveloped for the same reason (I agree with the critic who said that Zhang Ziyi is woefully underused). If they release a "director's cut" at some stage, with the character development and exposition bits put back in, I'd buy it in an instant.

The Zen/daoist metaphysical overtones (studying calligraphy to learn about swordplay, renouncing your feelings, etc) I can see might not appeal much to western audiences, but I didn't mind. Hey, it's not that far removed from some of the more mystical aspects of Star Wars.

Speaking of Star Wars, the general plotline of this film (hero sets out to slay the evil tyrant, ends up sparing his life) could make a GREAT basis for Episode 3. I'm not holding my breath, though.

 

[hong]

It's definitely in Mandarin. It's quite a minimalistic-film, with each 'version' of the story told in a different hue.

Primary colours, man! Very stylised indeed. Almost like an arthaus film.

I think it'll appeal visually. It's like looking at a piece of modern art with big swaths of colour and grandeur. Very bold.

When it came to the big fight between Broken Sword and the emperor, I was thinking "what weirdo emperor hangs bedsheets in his throne room?"

 

[Gumby]

Great, GREAT movie. I've got a region-free DVD (not bootleg!) of it, and I happily impose it upon my friends. I love that each different retelling has a different color scheme (red's my favorite), and I love the story of Broken Sword and Flying Snow. I do feel bad for Sky though - the actor was the best fighter of the group, he gets one fight with Jet Li, and then he's just gone for the rest of the movie, and everyone treats him as kind of an afterthought:
"Oh yeah, what about Sky?"
"I killed him."
"Oh right, you did."
"Actually, no I didn't. I was cunningly lying to you."
"Oh, right. Whatever. Say, if reality were chartreuse and pink, what would the fights be like?"
"You know, that's a funny story."