Now we’ve seen the highlights of Bruce and Jackie, it’s time to talk Jet—some might remember him the most from the Once Upon A Time in China series, but he’s certainly made his mark in the west too, starring in the Expendables series and more. Others might remember him from today’s subject—Zhang Yimou’s Hero, bringing us into the wuxia style. Compared to the in-camera stunts of the other films covered here so far, this style is far more flashy and physics defying, with wires offering us action straight out of folklore—but even so, it’s not like there’s no physical talent involved, and the artistic intricacy can be something to behold in its own right. Regardless, twenty years on, how does this epic hold up?
Li plays a nameless man who goes by, well, Nameless—here bought before an audience to the founder of the Chinese state itself, Qin Shi Huang (Chen Daoming)—here still on his quest to unify the warring kingdoms of the time. Qin is a…controversial figure to put it mildly, and we’ll get to that later. Either way, Nameless presents his proof of slaying three powerful assassins that have kept the king squirrelled away in the depths of his citadel—but Qin soon starts seeing holes in his story, and several different versions of the events preceding follow. It’s sort of like a take on Rashomon, though the fundamental theme is quite different.
The most memorable element of Hero is unquestionably the visual style—each flashback sequence is given its own color motif, with scenery and saturation coming in grey, blue, red, and more. It’s simple but it’s striking, with some moments like a duel in a red-drenched orchard still sticking with me years later. There’s of course one moment where assassins Flying Snow and Broken Sword (Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung) defend a calligraphy school against a massed volley of thousands of arrows, prefaced by some equally notable musings on the relation between penmanship and martial arts themselves. Indeed, there remains that philosophical touch that adds extra weight to the proceedings, be it to do with music or painting characters.
As often with Chinese epics, there’s no expense spared in scope—we have a duel taking place in the air over an entire lake, as well as a clash right in the midst of the Qin army itself. Even at the end, where Nameless confronts his fate, there’s a sense of size that gives it all that extra oomph in terms of visual potency.
Then we get to the main theme of the film, which is made very, very clear by the end—that of ends justifying unity out of chaos, that peace over the land is worth more than the desires of the individuals we see. The real Qin Shi Huang has a reputation among many as a pretty ruthless tyrant, even if of course others point out the nation he built. You can take of course the theme as being about some things simply being bigger than singular people, which itself is no invalid one and certainly worth what we see—but at the same time, there were some slightly uncomfortable murmurings about the rest of the implications, given the justifications seen for certain other figures in history and indeed the present. Of course, with China’s civil wars and more, there’s counter-arguments in turn—but still, in this case, it’s a matter where both sides certainly have valid takes on that final message we see at the end.
Either way, Hero has its place in martial arts film history—alongside Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, it introduced the west to wuxia and at least for the generation of the time, Chinese epics in general. More would come, with their own political overtones to provoke discussion—but next time, we’ll take a look at a slightly different sort of film from a different country…
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