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Hero movie starring Jet Li sets a high bar for Hollywood
The Hero Movie starring Jet Li is an excellent film. It is a fusion of (mostly) Chinese and American style movie making. The action scenes are Chinese (fluid, lengthy, and gripping), the plot centers around Chinese history (the Qin consolidation of ancient Chinese states in the third century B.C.), and the overall statement of the film is inherently Chinese (society over the individual), but the story telling technique is inescapably American, comparable to the movie The Usual Suspects. The Chinese action and the American story technique, combined with the movies rich artistic elements, make the movie Hero not just an excellent movie, but a film pivotal in the evolution of Chinese film making. The King of Qin (Chen Dao Ming) is justifiably paranoid. He has cleared his great hall, a hundred yards in every directions to stop three assassins, Sky 
(Donnie Yen), Snow (Maggie Cheung), and Broken Sword (Tony Leung), from making attempts on his life. A nameless Qin warrior (Jet Li) is summoned to the Hall. He carries with him the weapons of the three assassins, proof of their defeat. The possession of which, wins Nameless gold, control over households, and permission to approach the King. The King demands to hear the tales of the assassins defeat, and Nameless tells them. But the intelligent king sees through the warriors lies and rebuts him with versions of the tales how he believed they happened. It is in these recounts that the story of the three assassins, Sky, Snow, Broken Sword, and Broken Swords servant, Moon (
Zhang Ziyi
), is told.
It allows for a lot of artistic and martial exaggeration. For example, because each story is less than the complete truth, you get to see characters of Snow and Sword at each others throats in a jealous rage in one scene, then side by side battling the Qin army in another. You get to see characters dying in battle in one scene, then winning the same battle in the next scene. The story technique allows you to experience the movie from many different perspectives, see characters fight in different match-ups, with different motivations, and different outcomes. The viewer is allowed to explore all possibilities of the plot. The Hero Movie draws direct lines from martial art to other forms of art such as music, dance, and art. When nameless fights Sky in a chess club, it is to the chords and melodies of a guqin (an ancient Chinese musical instrument); when Nameless fights Sword above the waters of a mountain lake, their movements are more comparable to a ballet, then to a street fight; when the Qin army attacks a calligraphy school, the soul of martial art steadies the hand of the students, even as death rains on them from above. As much as this is a movie about war and fighting, it is a movie about how martial art connects to all art, whether it is music, calligraphy, or dance. 
Each scene in the Hero movie uses color, style, and emotion to tell the story. Red mountains behind red walls, behind characters in red clothes, expressing rage, lust and jealousy. Or blue waters, behind characters in blue clothes expressing solemn love and respect. Every detail is a part of the story, every color is an emotion. Every element, the wind through the yellow trees when Moon battles Snow, the surface of the mountain lake when Nameless battles Broken Sword, is a stage for a fight. Everything in this movie, whether it is the smallest detail, or the grandest set, moves the plot along. I loved the Hero movie. Every scene is a piece of art. Images from this movie, whether it is Snow and Moon battling in a whirlwind of yellow leaves, or a legendary fight between Donnie Yen and Jet Li, will be remembered long after I have forgotten the smaller details of the plot. OTHER PAGES YOU WILL LOVE:
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The Hero Movie's story telling technique is a series of surrealistic tales about the assassins, brought together in a wraparound conversation between King and Warrior.
