| I have always considered Zhang Yi Mou one of the greatest directors ever for his works "Raise the Red Lantern" and "Red Sorghum" (=Hong Gaolian). In China, he is The Man now (will do the official Peking Olympics docu, etc.). On "The Hero": Rarely have I watched a film while squirming so much in my seat. The first 5 minutes took my breath away: What vistas! What colours! Yet after 10 minutes, I wanted to walk out. The rest of eternity I was slumped in my seat, visually insulted, bored to tears. (My lady wanted to stay; I hung on, telling myself that if Amundsen made it on foot to the South Pole, I might make it through this film.) So what went wrong? I can ignore Zhang Yi Mou's choice of the wrong actors for the roles of super sword masters, and I can ignore their bad acting. With less success, I tried to ignore the camera's insistence for full close-ups of those strenuously brooding faces. But I was utterly helpless against the onslaught of beautiful pictures which quickly turned into a niagara of perfectly planned, perfectly executed, perfectly empty prettiness. And this was a film by Zhang Yi Mou who once opened up the whole world to me by telling me a little story. This time, though, he destroyed a little story by trying to show me the whole world. |
Hero of Zhang Yi Mou