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Written by Administrator
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Monday, 13 December 2004 00:00 |
"In any war there are heroes on both sides..."
Movie
To explain Hero is kind of difficult because much of what I can say
about it will sound cheesy. In the movie, a Nameless man (Jet Li) who
was once a lowly prefect has defeated the three most dangerous
assassins in all of China - Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), Flying
Snow (Maggie Cheung), and Sky (Donnie Yen). Also an important
part of the story was a servant turned martial artist Moon (Zhang Zizi
from Crouching Tiger and Rush Hour 2). He meets with the King of Qin
who wants him to explain exactly how he managed to kill these three
assasins that for years their armies weren't able to kill. During the
telling of the story, the King figures out a little something extra (no
spoilers - your welcome) that Nameless didn't tell him. The way that
the story is told is very cool and it'll leave you thinking you know
exactly what's going to happened only to be surprised more than a few
times.
If you dug the action of Crouching Tiger, Hi dden Dragon, the Matrix
movies, or any of the copycat films, you will most certainly like the
action in this flick. Like the Matrix or Crouching Tiger, Hero has a
certain surreal believablity to the action even though much of the
action isn't "possible" without wire work. Some movies that use wire
work really look cheesy and unoriginal, but I can easily say that this
is the coolest action I've ever seen since the first time I saw
Crouching Tiger the winter of my freshman year of college at the Fargo
Theater.
All of that being said, the action is only one of the cool things about
the film. What really defines the movie is the way the action works
within the storyline and how each fight almost has a life of it's own.
Out of the 90 or so minutes that the movie runs, I'd say literally half
of it is probably fight scenes. It is subtitled movie features the
original Mandarin language track. While I have absolutely no problem
with that, I know so of y'all find that sort of thing a bit of a turn
off. It does have an English track, but some of the dialogue has been
changed. I think it's better subtitled than dubbed.
Video & Sound
Besides the action, the look of this film really garnered it a lot of
well-deserved attention. Unlike any movie I've ever seen before, color
a huge roll. Just the all around look of this film is so cool and so
intentionally artistic that you can't help but feel a little bit wowed.
Unfortunately, the transfer is flawed. There are a few noticable
scratches, but I could just tell that there was something about the
film that just looked off. Since I'm not an expert on the subject, I
looked up a few other dvd reviews. I could tell that there was too much
grain - the reason all of these other sites said was because the movie
was overfiltered. It's not often that my eye can tell a film looks
worse than it should, but this is one example of a movie that just
looks poor.
The audio, on the otherhand, features a very nice 5.1 DTS surround
track. The action will give your sub a bit of action and the surrounds
are used very well. I especially liked it during the first fight scene
against Sky. Just listen to the ambient water sounds - very cool! Also
included is a 5.1 Dolby Digital track (Mandarin), another 5.1 Dolby
Digital track (English) and a stereo French track.
Extras
Not a whole lot on the disc which was kind of disappointing considering
a two-disc and three-disc version of the film are available for import.
The first featurette is Hero Defined which is your pretty
standard "talk about the movie" featurette. Not a whole lot to gain by
it, but at least it runs a respectable 24 minutes. Next up is a very
cool 13-minute conversation between Quentin Tarantino - who "presents"
the film (no idea what that means other than probably just to sell a
few extra tickets/dvds) - and Jet Li. It surprised me to hear that Li
was such a successful martial artist - he's like a 5-time world champ
over there! Anyways, QT is always fun to listen to and Jet Li almost
surprised me with all the interesting things he had to add. I only
wished it was a bit longer. Last up are storyboards and a soundtrack
spot which both really did nothing for me.
Closing Thoughts
This isn't the first time I've said "Ah... you've GOTTA rush out
and see this" about a foreign film. Many movies have a hard time
combining great action, storyline, and cinematography, but Hero really
pulls it off. Plus, at only 90 minutes, the movie doesn't feel bloated
- the pacing is just perfect. Trust me... you've gotta see this movie!
Overall Score
Movie - 9
Video & Sound - 7 (penalized for video, bonus for audio)
Extras - 3
Overall - 7
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Last Updated on Sunday, 12 December 2004 22:54 |
