Hero

December 10, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 96 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Jet Li has abandoned his campy Hong Kong action roots in favor of the serious Hong Kong fantasy flick in Zimou Zyang’s “Hero”. The success of 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has paved the way for similar movies to make it to the big screen here in the U.S. and Hero is the first of what will likely be many more over the coming years.

But is it any good? Well, that would definitely depend on how much of a guy’s guy you happen to be. A pure-bred & pedigreed specimen of the male species is going to love about 20 minutes of this movie and sleep through the other 76. This movie desperately tries to be an epic martial arts fantasy and I guess on some level it succeeds. On others, it definitely fails.

The basic premise is part “Rashomon” and part “1001 Arabian Nights”. In a not-yet united China of a couple thousand years ago, Li plays a humble local magistrate named Nameless (don’t think about it, just go with it) who has managed to slay the three greatest assassins in the land: the legendary Broken Sword, Flying Snow and Sky. The assassins wished to kill Qin, China’s greatest warlord and the would-be emperor of China. Needless to say, when Qin finds out about Nameless’ deeds, he summons him to the palace to reward him properly and, as well, to find out how he succeeded where thousands of others had failed.

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