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You're reading a really old version of matt-thornton's website. For example, if you're looking at the movie reviews... you'll notice that none of them are of recent films. Indeed, I leave them here for posterity's sake, but I doubt very much that they'll get updated anytime soon. So have a giggle.

You might, if you're lucky, find something recent from Matt at his blog matt's debates. Kernow bys vyken.

Hero (Ying xiong)

the one line review:

i need a hero... oww....

the overview

Sadly this film did not have Mariah Carey, or "I need a hero, a hero lala something in the morning..." as the theme tune. Which was a shame.

Actually no, it wasn't.

the plot:

Jet Li is a nameless martial arts warrior dude, who for 10 years has been honing his martial arts skills. Meanwhile, the King of Qin (say that when you've had a shandy) is suffering repeated assassination attempts by three skillful assassins. Jet Li manages to overcome them, and goes to meet with the King to receive his reward. The story unfolds as Jet Li recounts the events.

the verdict:

This is shot in the same vein as Squatting Giraffe Missing Gazebo, though this is much easier to understandable. It feels a lot cheaper too, for starters, it's short at 90 odd minutes and the character set is quite small.

However, it's elegantly shot, with plenty of attention paid to the fight scenes, the characterisation and the wonderful cinematography. The plot is weak at best, but that doesn't really matter. It's beautifully filmed with some really nice touches. For instance, the essence and spiritual side of martial arts is transferred to the watcher in numerous ways. For example, quite a few people get stabbed up by a big sword (the same bloke manages to die about 4 times) but you never see a stab wound, you do not see blood soaked clothes. For example, one of the major plotlines is a love story between two of the main characters. The depth of their love is intensely apparent, yet you never see them kiss or show any physical emotion to each other. Instead, the director relies on less obvious, but more powerful means of achieving the same effect. And this works very well, and keeps the emphasis on the martial arts, rather than the Hollywood requirement of blood, guts and boobies. There's no "the hero gets the girl" crap here. I also like how as the story unfolds, and you see various counts of essentially the same story, the scene changes very subtly, and the characters perform the same actions, but in different clothes.

Jet Li is good in this, in fact, I don't think I've seen anything I didn't like with him in. Except maybe Romeo Must Die (I think he was in that) which was rubbish. And Ziyi Zhang is also in this, and she's FAF.

It's filmed beautifully, but just feels a little weak. It's not a serious complaint, as the film does well in spite of this. It doesn't have the sinister side of other martial arts films, like Kill Bill, but that's a good thing, as that is not what this film is supposed to do. The only irritating thing is the piss-poor job they did of boosting the oral track, as the sync, at least on my copy, was about half a second out. Other than that, this is worth a watch.