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I thought Hero was brilliant, but I thought HoFD was a steaming pile of dung. I hardly managed to sit through it, and I've already forgotten all of it except the part where she has to hit the drums with her sleeves, which I thought was stupid, but apparently stuck in my head anyway.
The only thing it has in common with Hero is the oriental prettiness, which it didn't even do that well. Certainly not well enough to compare to Hero.
Posts: 88 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I'm with Jiminy here. Hero was a complete film and watchable in ways HoFD could only hope to be. The film has about 30 minutes of horseriding sequences peppered through out that add nothing to the plot but a sense of foresty distance.
The acting is also atrocious, and the entire film is overdramatized to the point where you almost laugh when central characters bite the dust.
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HERO was horrible. Ther, someone finally said it!!!! HAHA... It was a complete rip off of croutching tiger, which was an amazing movie. I cant stand how all these people followed CTHD like some fad, and then started dissing it in the same way. In a few years everyone will also take back what they said about HERO, only this time they'll be right. I mean cmon, at least in Crouching they tried to provide an explanation for all the wire work, in HERO, peopl putting swords into the water and then bouncing back up, their explanation...uh... watch Crouching Tiger! Duh!
Posts: 62 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Dink, CTHD and Hero are two completely different movies. Don't let the similarity of one aspect detract from the actual stories that are being presented. Watch Hero again and listen for the story, and then you will find the explanation for the way the movie looks and feels.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Dink: HERO was horrible. Ther, someone finally said it!!!! HAHA... It was a complete rip off of croutching tiger, which was an amazing movie. I cant stand how all these people followed CTHD like some fad, and then started dissing it in the same way. In a few years everyone will also take back what they said about HERO, only this time they'll be right. I mean cmon, at least in Crouching they tried to provide an explanation for all the wire work, in HERO, peopl putting swords into the water and then bouncing back up, their explanation...uh... watch Crouching Tiger! Duh!
Hero was presented as a myth. The characters are larger than life, as one would expect of a myth. That is all the explanation that's needed.
And is it possible that you are serious about Hero being a CTHD ripoff? Because they're both pretty chinese kung-fu movies? You make me cry. They're both excellent movies on their own merits, and if you honestly didn't see deep enough into either to tell the difference, then you need to stick to Saturday morning cartoons.
Posts: 88 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I liked Hero but I thought House of Flying Daggers was much better. It seemed to me like there may have been a little communist propaganda hidden in Hero but I would have to watch it again to find the specific points I noticed. Did anyone else feel that way when watching it?
Posts: 36 | Registered: May 2005
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it was more of a nationalistic/realist meaning rather then a communist one but I only say the end not the whole thing I have to watch it all as soon as I can. Now did they actually say "our land" or "under heaven"?
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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I think Hero is my favorite live action asian film. As for House of Flying Daggers, it is also a good movie but it isn't something I can watch over and over again like Hero. As for the mention of Kung Fu Hustle, it is a great movie as well.
As for Hero being a rip-off of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (again, another great movie), that is just plain silly. Other than the impossible jumps and maneuvers, the two films have absolutely nothing in common. To think this only reveals an ignorance of asian film in general, since this sort of thing occurs very often and was only popularized by CTHD in 1999. See the pre-CTHD Iron Monkey (also awesome) as an example of an earlier film (1993) with over the top wirework.
Posts: 29 | Registered: May 2005
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quote: There are some reviewers who hopped on a particular bandwagon: political appropriateness. See, Nameless makes a decision they don't like: at a moment when he could stop the King's conquest of China's warring states and founding of an empire, he turns his blade away. Nameless even acknowledges that what he's done will cost the countless lives. On this basis a bunch of reviewers and a couple critics roundly damned the movie, saying it kowtows to empire, to the horrors of totalitarianism.
Well this is just bull****, and it's a shallow reading of the thing. Those fed a steady diet of American action films see a hero as a single-minded automaton who's there to get the job done and stands for a single, unambiguous righteous cause. Simple-minded storytelling, played out by mannequins. Reviewers and critics do us no service by oversimplifying or altogether ignoring such a deeply complex point of story as is the ending of the film. It annoys me to no end that Anthony Lane in the New Yorker suggests "Try not to ponder the movie’s end," calling it "a paean to tyrannical rule." Bull****. Sadly, J. Hoberman, whom I love to read (enjoy his review of Team America World Police), dismisses it as "is the essence of shallow gravitas." A slam, a shame, and pure bull****. James Bernadelli claims "the plot is trite... The narrative is clearly of secondary concern." A steaming three-foot pile of bull****.
No, the culmination of Hero should be discussed for a long time, and lauded, for being ambiguous and troubling. In my mind and three screenings, Zhang isn't telling me that we always must beat the oppressor and champion our cause, because sometimes the cause doesn't really exist, it's an ideal that exists in the mind. I certainly do not think Zhang is implying that empire is the only way to peace, that sometimes we must surrender to the oppressor in order to save lives. Try this on for size: another reader Isaac S. wrote me to tell me a very insightful point, that Nameless, like his friend and enemy Broken Sword, roots his change of heart in the characters Sword has carved in the sand with his own broken sword: tian xia., Now, in the Miramax version we saw in the theaters here, this was translated to mean 'our land." Bad translation, sort of an Arthurian reference to some kind of deep mythic patriotism. On the Chinese bootleg version that Isaac saw, and loved, tian xia is given its more telling, poetic and as far as I can discern more accurate translation: "all under heaven." I read in this that perhaps Nameless has seen in Broken Sword's character drawn in the sand, tian xia, a universe beyond the sword, a world where the greatest sword-wielder realizes that the sword is unnecessary. Rather than choosing to commit yet another act by the sword, he puts it down. For the benefit of all under heaven.
quote:Originally posted by Peter: I love asian movies. The plotlines, the cinematography, beautiful.
You should watch "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring" as well. Beautiful cinematography and very thought provoking. It is a Korean film. No kung fu though! Posts: 29 | Registered: May 2005
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