mujer del misterio

Ying Xiong “Hero”:
Nameless: Jet Li
Broken Sword: Tony Leung
Flying Snow: Maggie Cheung
Moon: Zhang Ziyi
King of Qin: Chen Dao Ming
Long Sky: Donnie Yen

Please go forth and rent this if you haven’t seen it. I am not a huge fan of martial arts films, and I detest what Tarantino has done to the whole thing. But this movie is more about the use of color and style to tell a story than about sword play and flying people. Visually stunning in everyway, I was often unaware of the wire work. As opposed to Crouching tiger where I was actually distracted by the flying people and had to force myself to understand why people were running on the tops of trees. In Hero the same effect made me imagine flying myself and felt totally natural.

I do watch a ton of foreign language films, and find that some translate better than others. One of the biggest complaints I had with CrouchingTHD was the simplicity of the subtitles when compared with the words being spoken. (sort of like Bill Murray’s experience in Lost in Translation). I watched the whole thing thinking that if I spoke Mandarin, perhaps I would like it better. Those who do speak the dialect said that it was some of the worst dialogue ever; the accents were off and strained. I am not sure that Hero is actually better in this regard, but the images on the screen make up for any loss in translation. I believe that one could watch the film and not read any of the subtitles and still very much enjoy the visuals and the music. I might try that next time I watch it.

This story is a complete work of fiction that takes place 2000 years ago in China. The King, afraid of assassination attempts, reluctantly agrees to see a nameless warrior who claims to have killed 3 would be assassins (Snow, Sky and Broken Sword). As reward Nameless is allowed to move closer to the king while telling his story.

Three different tales are told as to the circumstance of the battles with Snow, Sky and Broken Sword. Namless tells his story, the king counters with what he believes happened and fianlly Namelss retells his version. Each one sounds like it might be truth or lie; could the whole thing just be a plot by Nameless to get close enough to the king to kill him too?

Even if you do not like “martial arts” movies, or foreign films, you should give this one a try.
Cheers-