Aaaah … I just got back from finally having seen Hero on the big screen and it was goooooooood. I went in a group of nine, three of whom had already seen it, six who had not, and we all left happy. It looked simply fantastic on the big screen and I found myself noticing things in the visuals and sound design that just simply don’t come through on a home system. The theater was packed out and was dead silent throughout the entire screening as everybody simply sat back and took it in. Word from the new folk on the way out: “Better than Crouching Tiger.” See? This is why you should always listen to Bubba.
And now a note for the nit-picky: those rumors that Miramax have tweaked the opening text and subtitles are correct. My impression is that they aimed for a translation that translated concepts more than going for a word for word translation of the spoken dialogue and for the most part the new subs are an improvement over the ones found on the Asian DVD releases. The two big exceptions lie in the opening text which is clumsy and removes some of the ambiguity around the king’s character and the translation of the phrase that Broken Sword inscribes for Nameless as he heads off to kill the king. The new version does the job but is just not nearly as poetic as the more literal translation. So, yes, there are some issues but not nearly enough to get all hot and bothered over.
The film’s got an unusually strong slate of trailers in front of it, by the way, including the trailers for The Grudge and a new – to me, anyway – trailer for Sky Captain, both of which had KungFuGuy and myself chortling away enough that we drew the mockery of the people we were watching the film with. The Grudge looks great on the big screen and Toshio just sounds better through a big ol’ sound system. Sky Captain looks simply spectacular. The art direction on that film is just staggering …
I heard that Hero is the single most pirated film in history, and definitely it’s not hard to see why. It was a WICKED movie
Saw the film on Friday and was blown away. Went in relatively spoiler free, having never seen the film nor read any in depth reviews and was rewarded for my paitence. I felt that the movie had a gravity that CT,HD lacked … wether that was generated by the subject matter (which had more historical resonance), the visuals (the cliff top suicide esp) or the fight choreography.
In all a very rewarding theatrical experience, though not as exciting as renting childrens movies on dvd and watching them by myself in my parents basement.
At least he admitted he rents children’s movies intended for the handicapped. That explains his taste in cinema.
“Crouching Tiger” was the most over-rated hunk of dung on film ever. If this “Hero” movie is even comparable, I’ll wait for the video and maybe rent it. Generally, I absolutely loathe martial arts movies. They’re like childrens’ stories … for retarded children.
Hey 2 …
There are a few reasons why I prefer Hero to Crouching Tiger, among them the superior cinematography, fight choreography , and the presence of Tony Leung. Tony’s just an actor that I always click with pretty deeply whether in stuff like this, Infernal Affairs, In the Mood For Love, or even Hard Boiled.
As for Hero being more ‘straightforward’ than Crouching Tiger, I can only assume that boils down to translation issues because in terms of actual plot line CTHD is a perfectly linear story told in a western style while Hero is structurally layered and more philosophical. So …
Something to bear in mind about Hero is that it was made in a country where films still have to pass beofre a politically oriented censorship board – one that will ban your film if it is believed to be critical of the current government. In that environment the original translation of Hero actually succeeds as a very sly political satire. The historical King of Qin – who is a pretty obvious stand in for modern China – is widely regarded as one of the more brutal and oppressive leaders in Chinese history. In the original translation there’s a good bit of ambiguity about how you’re supposed to feel about him that has been removed in the American translation. The two translation changes that I mentioned above are enough to skew the film towards being a straightforward, rah-rah, go China sort of film, which was not the case originally.
In the original translation there’s no mention of any sort of motivation for the king’s military action until the sequence where Nameless relays his conversation with Broken Sword. Until that point you see the king purely through Nameless’ eyes, i.e. he is an oppressive ruler who must be stopped. When the king then seizes on Broken Sword’s story and claims that Broken Sword is the only one that understands him, and goes on about the key to the calligraphy, there’s a pretty major question about whether the king actually believes what he’s saying or whether he’s just grasping at straws, hoping that since that belief stopped one assassin it would also stop this one. The change in the phrase the Broken Sword writes in the sand has a similar effect. ‘Our Land’ has a purely safe, China for the Chinese, sort of feel to it. There’s not really another way you can interpret that. ‘All Under Heaven’, however, could be read that way but it could also imply that the king is a bit of a megalomaniac who simply wants to amass as much power as possible no matter what it costs. With the original translation when you get to the end of the film whether you interpret it as a story of a hero laying down his life to help create a strong, worthwhile empire (i.e. pro-Chinese government) or as the story of how a moment’s indecision allowed an oppressive government to seize power (i.e. anti-Chinese government) depends purely on how you already feel about China’s ruling party. It’s a really clever piece of work that is largely undone by giving us the positive rational for the king’s actions as stated fact at the beginning of the film.
maybe I just missed something, I saw the film last night…
yes there were some really beautiful scenes in there, yes the fight scenes were entertaining and the use of color to portray the shades of truth interesting. But what did I miss?
I didn’t see a historically mountain moving film in this and actually I think I liked CT,HD better than this because the story line was less straightforward, here it felt like they spoon fed you..
Maybe the translation simply did no justice to the oomph of the actor’s words, not just in translating the last written phrase of broken sword but elsewhere in the movie? I don’t know, i really wanted this to be a mountain mover after all that I heard about it.
Maybe people are being moved by hype or I missed something and if I did please let me know in an adult fashion (and just b/c some people liked it doesn’t mean it’s a good movie [Harry Potter anyone?] or because it was the most expensive chinese film ever made or…)
I really do appreciate the insights..
According to early estimates, from what I’ve heard via various sources, HERO pulled in somewhere between 6.5 and 7 million dollars Friday (in America). If this is true, it could very well be the top movie in America at the end of the weekend.