REVIEW: Hero starring Jet Li

Friday night I went to see Hero with Ashish and his buddies Long and Eugene. The movie stars Jet Li (the martial arts god) and Ziyi Zhang (from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). While I must admit I did enjoy the movie, it definitely was not what I expected, nor what I think most people would expect based on the trailer.

The film is very artistic, both in the format of storytelling and in the set and costumes. The story unfolds in a series of flashbacks, first from Jet Li’s character, Nameless, and then from the King of Qin’s point of view. In each different version of the same flashback, the characters and set are a different color. In one, the set has a red tinge and the characters are wearing all red clothing. In the next, everything is green. Very interesting, I am sure there is some sort of Chinese color symbolism I don’t know about behind it.

Now about the expectations. For me, the trailer made the movie seem like a very realistic martial arts movie, with some amazing stuff done by Jet Li. Instead, I was quite disappointed to see a lot of flying through the air. And we’re not talking Matrix-esque moves here, the fight scenes in Hero look quite fake to be honest. I can understand that, on some level, the flying helps in telling the story (in that the fight scenes are remembered, and are thus probably more spectacular) but I think they could have gone about it differently.

One final note, the ending really confirms that the movie was not made in Hollywood. Definitely not what I would expect for the ending of a movie such as this, but at the same time, I think it worked quite well in closing the story. So would I reccommed Hero? Not if you are expecting a kick-ass martial arts movie. If you are looking for something with an artsy storytelling feel, then definitely go see it.