| already
wary of the label ZhangYiMou after enduring the cheesefest that was House
Of Flying Daggers (HOFD), and suspicious of the use of Quentin
Tarantino to "endorse" this movie, I went in for the UK
pre-screenings of Hero with low expectations.
i really don't understand
how two movies by the same director, dealing with the same genre, same
context matter and zhangziyi in both of them, could differ this greatly.
HOFD was pretentious, petty and such a waste of talent. On the
other hand, Hero has the same epic proportions, exaggerated
scenes, over the top sequences and one-dimensional characters. Yet
everything works out. Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung and even (yes really)
Jet Li portray their one-dimensional dialogue and scripts with a subtle
depth to their characters. Over the top sequences are done on such grand
scales your eyes will thank you for taking them to the cinema.
casting was excellent,
this time putting zhangziyi as a silly little girl (a role she
deserves), jet li as a shallow avenger, tonyleung and maggiecheung as
the lovers with idealistic baggage and I even liked the machiavellian
portrayal of the emperor.
think of hero as
CrouchingTigerHiddenDragon meets Kill Bill. |
