Hero (2002 film)

Hero
Directed by	Zhang Yimou
Produced by	Zhang Yimou
Written by	Feng Li Bin Wang Zhang Yimou
Starring	Jet Li Tony Leung Chiu Wai Maggie Cheung Zhang Ziyi Chen Daoming Donnie Yen
Music by	Tan Dun
Cinematography	Christopher Doyle
Editing by	Angie Lam
Distributed by	Miramax Films (U.S./UK)
Release date(s)	October 19 2002 October 19 2002 January 24 2003 January 24 2003 August 16 2003 August 27 2004 September 24 2004
Running time	99 min. 107 min. (Extended version)
Country	China
Language	Mandarin
Budget	$30,000,000
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Hero (Chinese: 英雄; pinyin: Yīngxióng) is a Chinese wuxia film, directed by Zhang Yimou with music by Tan Dun. Starring Jet Li as the nameless protagonist, the movie is loosely based on the legendary Jing Ke. A group of assassins: Flying Snow (飛雪) (Maggie Cheung), Broken Sword (殘劍) (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), and Long Sky (長空) (Donnie Yen), have sworn to kill the King of Qin (秦王) (Chen Daoming), and Nameless (無名) (Jet Li) comes to the royal capital to claim the reward offered for their defeat. The movie tells the story of his conversation with the King of Qin, and the flashbacks depicted the journey he took to earn the honor of sitting before the emperor. Zhang Ziyi stars as Broken Sword's servant Moon (如月). Hero was first released in China on October 24 2002. At that time, it was both the most expensive and the highest-grossing motion picture in Chinese cinema history. Miramax owned the American market distribution rights, but had delayed the release of the film for nearly two years. It was finally presented by Quentin Tarantino to American theaters on August 27, 2004.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Reception and interpretation 3.1 Political meaning and criticism 3.2 Criticism of translation 3.3 Miramax release 3.4 Box office 3.5 Critical response 3.6 Awards and recognition 4 DVD release 5 Music 6 Other media 7 Trivia 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

Plot

In Ancient China, before the reign of the first emperor, warriors from the seven warring kingdoms plot to assassinate the ruler of Qin, the most powerful faction. Since an attempt on his life three years prior by lovers and expert assassins Flying Snow (Cheung) and Broken Sword (Leung), the emperor has lived in constant fear, never removing his battle armor and forbidding anyone from coming within one hundred paces of his throne. When a nameless orphan (Li), now the prefect of a small jurisdiction, defeats these assassins, he is summoned to the palace to hold an audience with the emperor and to collect his substantial reward. The weapons of Snow, Broken Sword, and a third assassin, Long Sky (Yen), are placed before the king, who permits the prefect to approach within ten paces. The emperor demands to know how Nameless defeated all three nemeses, and the prefect obliges in an extended narrated flashback sequence. He claims that Sky and Snow had spent one night as lovers, which created a rift between Snow and Broken Sword. Nameless first approached Sky in a "chess" parlor, and with seven Imperial guards as witnesses, slays the assassin. He then travels to a small calligraphy school in the province of Zhao where Flying Snow and Broken Sword are hiding. Nameless requests a scroll from Sword (which, in the present day, the King unrolls and displays for further study). That night, Nameless reveals that he has killed Sky, and that Sky's dying wish was that Snow avenge him. The jealous and heartbroken Sword takes his servant, Moon (Zhang) into his bed, which prompts Snow to retaliate with lethal force; Snow then does battle with the despairing Moon, dispatching her with ease. Despite these victories, her focus has been disrupted by the deaths of so many friends, and when she seeks to avenge herself on the nameless prefect, he defeats her easily.

Unexpectedly, the emperor expresses disbelief at Nameless's story. In his version (which is also depicted in flashbacks), Sky and Nameless had only staged their battle, and Sky gave his life so that Nameless could approach the throne. Nameless then traveled to the calligraphy school, described his battle with Sky and his further plans, and after demonstrating his extraordinary skill with a sword, requests that one of the lovers allow him to publicly defeat them, so that he can advance within ten paces and kill the emperor. Snow and Sword spend a final night together before meeting the prefect; neither wants the other to die, and both wish to be the one to give the sacrifice. Snow finally inflicts a debilitating (but non-lethal) wound on her lover and goes to meet her death. Nameless and Broken Sword fight briefly as a tribute to Snow, and the prefect departs solemnly; Moon thereafter gives Nameless her master's namesake weapon, stating that their swords, like their souls, should never be apart. As the flashback ends, the King theorizes that, for these brave and loyal friends to have given their lives to him, Nameless must have an assassination technique that is impossible to counter within ten paces. Nameless corroborates most of this story, though he claims that the King has underestimated Broken Sword. He does have an unstoppable attack, but which he can also use to inflict a deep-but-harmless wound on the victim, bypassing all vital organs while appearing to strike the victim dead. It is to this wound that Long Sky yielded himself, and, in the third, final, and accurate flashback, Nameless states that Sky is alive and recovering steadily. He once again asks either Sword or Sky to receive a similar blow in front of Imperial troops. Snow agrees to, but Broken Sword declares that he will protect the king's life from Nameless however he can. In a flashback-within-a-flashback, he recalls the assassination attempt he made with Snow. He had the opportunity to kill the Emperor, but declined, for reasons he has not yet explained. Snow, still committed to her cause, manages to wound but not kill Broken Sword; she then faces the duel and her "death." Nameless prepares to travel to the Kingdom of Qin, but is stopped part-way by Broken Sword, who finally explains why he spared the King. He uses the phrase "all under heaven" ("our land" in the altered English language version) to communicate his desire for universal peace at the cost of temporary war. Sword believes that the King can bring peace to all under heaven/our land if he is allowed to proceed on his course of conquest, and he urges the prefect to let him do so. The king is deeply affected and declares that Broken Sword has understood his true intentions. Unafraid at his death, he throws his own sword to Nameless and turns to Broken Sword's scroll. As he contemplates what the assassin wrote, he realizes that Broken Sword has used this scroll to communicate his ideal for the warrior, who paradoxically should have no desire to kill. Nameless realizes the wisdom of these words and leaves the king alive. Snow's servant rides from the palace with a flag indicating that the attempt has failed. Snow and Broken Sword, who have been waiting in the surrounding desert for news, are thrust into conflict. Snow denounces her lover as a traitor and attacks him; he allows her to slay him in hopes that she will understand his love for her. Snow, distraught, impales herself on the same blade. Earlier, Snow had expressed her desire to take her husband back to her peaceful home; she alludes to this in her dying moments, and when Moon approaches, she finds both lovers dead. Nameless, meanwhile, stands at the locked palace doors, awaiting his fate. To set an example for other would-be assassins and to uphold his own laws, the emperor reluctantly orders him to be killed, and Nameless is struck down in a hail of arrows. He receives a hero's burial, and as the closing text reveals, the King of Qin did in fact manage to unite the Middle Kingdom under one rule; he became Qin Shi Huang, China's "first Emperor", responsible for, among other things, unifying the Chinese language and its weights and measures system, and completing the Great Wall of China. The film closes stating that the Chinese people still refer to their homeland as "all under heaven" ("our land" in the altered English translation).

Cast

• Jet Li — Nameless
• Tony Leung Chiu Wai — Broken Sword
• Maggie Cheung — Flying Snow
• Zhang Ziyi — Moon
• Chen Daoming — King of Qin
• Donnie Yen — Sky

Reception and interpretation

Political meaning and criticism

This film has faced criticism from abroad at a perceived pro-totalitarian and pro-Chinese reunification subtext. Critics also cited as evidence the approval that had been given to the film by the government of the People's Republic of China. These critics argued that the ulterior meaning of the film was triumph of security and stability over liberty and human rights and that the concept of "all under heaven" (translated in the English-subtitled release as "Our land") was being used to justify the incorporation of areas such as Tibet and Xinjiang within the People's Republic of China and to promote the reunification of Taiwan with China. The film's director, Zhang Yimou, purportedly withdrew from the 1999 Cannes Film Festival to protest similar criticism,^[1] though some believed that Zhang had other reasons. Defenders of Zhang Yimou and his film argued that the Chinese government's approval of Hero was no different from the U.S. military providing support to films such as Top Gun and Black Hawk Down, in which certain filmmakers portrayed the U.S. armed forces in a positive light. Others have rejected entirely that Zhang Yimou had any political motives in his making of the film. Zhang Yimou himself had maintained that he had absolutely no political points to make.^[2]

Criticism of translation

There has been some criticism of the film for its American-release translation of one of the central ideas in the film: 天下 (tiān xià). It literally means "under heaven" or "under the firmament", and is a Chinese phrase to mean "The World". The translation "Our land" seems to denote just the nation of China rather than the whole world. Whether Zhang Yimou intended the film to also have meaning with regard to the world and world unity was difficult to say — but had later been changed in television-release versions of the film. Zhang Yimou was asked^[3] about the change at a screening in Massachusetts and said it was a problem of translation. "If you ask me if 'Our land' is a good translation, I can't tell you. All translations are handicapped. Every word has different meanings in different cultures," he said. However, in Cause: The Birth of Hero - a documentary on the making of 'Hero' - Zhang mentions that he hopes the film will have some contemporary relevance, and that, in the aftermath of the 911 attacks (which took place just before the movie was filmed) the themes of universal brotherhood and "peace under heaven" may indeed be interpreted more globally, and taken to refer to peace in "the world."^[4]

Miramax release

Miramax, the film studio, owned the American-market distribution rights, but delayed the release of the film a total of six times. Import DVDs of the film were sold online and Miramax demanded that the sites cease selling the DVD.^[5] The movie was finally released in American theaters on August 27, 2004 after intervention by Disney executives and Quentin Tarantino, who helped secure an uncut English-subtitled release. He also offered to lend his name to promotional material for the film in order to attract box office attention to it; his name was attached to the credits as "Quentin Tarantino Presents".^[6] The United States version of the DVD, with Mandarin, English, and French soundtracks, was released on November 30, 2004. However the American release had the English translation altered to a more Westernized manner of speaking (for example, "our land" in the American version as opposed to the direct translation "all under heaven").

Box office

When Hero opened in Hong Kong in December 2002, it grossed a massive HK $15,471,348 in its first week. Its final gross of HK $26 million made it one of the top films in Hong Kong that year. On August 27, 2004, after a long delay, Hero opened in 2,031 North American screens uncut and subtitled. It debuted at #1, grossing US $18,004,319 ($8,864 per screen) in its opening weekend. The total was the second highest opening weekend ever for a foreign language film. Its US $53,710,019 North American box office gross makes it the fourth highest-grossing foreign language film and 15th highest-grossing martial arts film in North American box office history. The total worldwide box office gross was US $177,394,432.

Critical response

The film received highly favorable reviews scoring 95% at Rotten Tomatoes^[7] and 84 at Metacritic.^[8] The reviewer for Salon.com took an especially positive stance deeming it among the most "ravishing films" ever.^[9] Nevertheless there were film critics who felt the film had advocated autocracy and reacted with discomfort. Stephen Hunter gave the film a strongly positive review, but mentioned his concern that the film endorsed the views presented by Qin Shi Huang, concluding "That was the King of Qin's reasoning and it was all the other big bad ones' as well: Hitler and Stalin and most particularly that latter-day king of Qin named Mao, another great unifier who stopped the fighting and killed only between 38 million and 67 million in the process."^[10] The Village Voice's reviewer deemed it to have a "cartoon ideology" and justification for ruthless leadership comparable to Triumph of the Will.^[11]

Awards and recognition

• Hero was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the 2003 Academy Awards but lost to Nowhere in Africa (Germany).
• Zhang Yimou won the Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2003 for his work in Hero.
• The National Society of Film Critics awarded Zhang Yimou their Best Director award.
• The New York Film Critics Circle recognized cinematographer Christopher Doyle with its award for Best Cinematography.
• The Chicago Film Critics Association awarded Hero Best Cinematography, alongside Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.
• The Online Film Critics Society awarded Hero Best Cinematography and Best Foreign Language Film.
• Hero received seven Hong Kong Film Awards in 2003, including Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound. The movie was also nominated for seven other awards, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Song, and Best Director.

DVD release

An extended edition with eight minutes of additional footage was released in China. It features minor differences in story, music, and fight sequences to those of the theatrical version. One particular difference in the extended version of 'Hero' was Moon attempting to take her life before Nameless stops her after Broken Sword left with his sword and words.

Music

• Hero (英雄) is an international airplay hit theme song sung by Faye Wong. It is unavailable in the American version of both the film credits and soundtrack album.
• Wind & Sand (風沙) is a theme song inspired by the film and sung by actor Tony Leung. It is only available in his titled album.
• The musical instrument used in the fight in the Weiqi courtyard scene is an ancient zither said to be a predecessor of the guqin, the Chinese seven-stringed zither. The actual music was performed by Liu Li on a modern guqin.

Other media

• The comic book version of the story by Wing Shing Ma is faithful to the film's story for the most part, until the ending. In this version, all of the heroes survive and the Emperor is killed.
• Drum n' bass group Evol Intent have a song entitled "Broken Sword" which appears on the Dieselboy compilation album The Human Resource on both discs. The song samples the film's soundtrack.

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• This is the first Jet Li movie made in mainland China in the more than 20 years since his debut as a leading actor, in Shaolin Temple in 1982.
• The King of Qin used an ancient way of saying 'I', 寡人 (pinyin: guǎ rén), which literally means 'lonely person'. This way of referring to himself in the third person has a parallel in the Western notion of the "Royal 'We'" or Pluralis majestatis.
• The board game referred to as chess during the confrontation with Sky is go, or weiqi, an ancient game of strategy still played today.
• The flying fight scene between Nameless and Broken Sword was filmed above the waters of Arrow Bamboo Lake in the Jiuzhaigou Valley of northern Sichuan.
• Hero is one of very few titles to be released on EVD as well as DVD.

See also

• Cinema of China

References

External links

• Jet Li and the essence of a 'Hero'
• Hero at the Internet Movie Database
• Hero at Rotten Tomatoes
• Hero at Metacritic
• Hero at LoveHKFilm.com
• Is HERO a Paean to Authoritarianism?
• Cracking the Color Code of 'Hero'
• A comparison of DVD releases
• Another comparison of DVD releases, with screenshots
• Zhang Ziyi CSC: Hero
• Hero from Helloziyi.us
• Hero at Box Office Mojo
• Soundtrack Review at Tracksounds

Preceded by Exorcist: The Beginning

Box office number-one films of 2004 (USA) August 29 - September 5, 2004

Succeeded by Resident Evil: Apocalypse

•  • e Films directed by Zhang Yimou
Red Sorghum (1987) • Codename Cougar (1989) • Ju Dou (1990) • Raise the Red Lantern (1991) • The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) • To Live (1994) • Shanghai Triad (1995) • Keep Cool (1997) • The Road Home (1999) • Not One Less (1999) • Happy Times (2000) • Hero (2002) • House of Flying Daggers (2004) • Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005) • Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)

•  • e Cinema of China
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