A war has heroes on both sides
When a film starts with such beautiful words imagine what follows.
This is the story behind the Great wall of china
The Best : This movie is a brilliant masterpiece in Art. If not for anything else this one should be watched for the Visual effects alone. Each section of the movie is represented in a different color. It looks like the different strokes of a painter splashing his colors on the canvas, with each evolving story.
The movie is a series of versions of the same events. This movie is from the guys who made Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?but with Quentin Tarantino as one of the cooks. In CTHD, gravity defying flying gimmicks in martial arts started to grate my nerves, ?Hero? has them too?but not that many.
Music is an important part in the movie. Entire movie has a background score which sounded like a combination of violin, shehanai and sitar to my Indian ears.
Language: My husband called me ?torture queen? as soon as the movie started. He said I didn?t stop at English movies and have gone international. The movie is in Chinese??.with English subtitles.
At first it is hard to concentrate on both, but a few reels in to the movie you don?t care what?s being written underneath. If words maketh the movie, then Pushpak wouldn?t be a classic, would it?
Acting Jet Li , a man of small stature walks tall. He acts swell. He is Nameless in this movie as there was no family to give him a name. Tony Leung Chiu-wai is Broken Sword and Maggie Cheung Man-yuk is Flying Snow, Donnie Yen is Sky, Chen Dao Ming is the Qin (a kingdom in ancient china) king. All the actors performed with utmost subtlety and sincerity.
The Story
China was once 7 kingdoms, with warring rulers. The powerful of them all was the king of Qin. He plans to conquer all the other six kingdoms and create one kingdom wiping away the borders with the blood of his enemies.(Of course, he gets to be the emperor).
But there is one problem.
3 powerful assassins (sky, sword, snow) from Zhao want to put an end to Qin king’s (QK) ambitions. They had suffered personal tragedies at the hands of Qin?s army. Snow and Sword were almost successful 3 years ago, but leave without killing him.
To not repeat such incident Qk?s makes his palace most heavily guarded.
The person who kills Sky is granted a bounty and can sit within 20ft of the king? 10ft for killing Snow and sharing a Cup of tea with the king for killing Sword.
The movie opens with Nameless, a soldier in Qk?s army who killed Sky, Snow and Sword, meeting the king to claim his price. Qk asks Nameless how he killed Sky.
Nameless relates the events (the entire sequence is in B&W) as how Nameless challenged Sky to a duel in front of Qin?s soldiers defeated by Sky. They fight it out (Matrix ishtyle) with Chinese Tansen (a blind musician) playing for them. Ultimately Nameless kills Sky.
Nameless moves 10ft towards the king for killing Snow next .
He relates how he found out that Snow and Sword were hiding in a Calligraphy school in Zhao when Qin?s army attacked the school. Nameless reaches there before Qin?s army to learn the calligraphy from Sword. (Something about learning how he handles the sword by observing how he handles the pen).
Sword has a servant Moon, who dotes on her master. Sword and Snow were lovers which was common knowledge but what nobody knew was that Snow and Sky had spent a night together without sword?s knowledge and that Sword suspects it. Nameless gets into the confidence of Snow by warding off an attack by Qin?s army. He shows them Sky?s sword that night and that he had killed Sky and Sky told him before dying that Snow would avenge his death. He did this to make Snow and Sword turn against each other.
He challenges them to a duel in Qin?s army camp. Sword becomes jealous and to make Snow jealous he gets physical with moon. Overcome with Jealousy Snow kills Sword and her guilt makes her unable to focus and she gets killed by Nameless. (This whole section is in Red)(The fight between Snow and Moon is one of the best scenes)
There are only candles between the King and Nameless and the candles sway by the heavy breathing of Nameless.
Qk tells Nameless that he has seen thru his lies and that Snow and Sword were not emotional like he described and that they were great warriors and he personally had witnessed their mastery three years ago.(The flashback is in green)
Qk offers his own version of events.
He tells Nameless that he believes Nameless too was an Assassin and he made a deal with Sky to be killed by him so that he could enter his palace and come within 20 ft of the king. He then meets Snow and Sword and tells them that one of them has to be killed by him so that he could come within 10ft of the king.
He could then attack the king as Nameless doesn?t lose and can kill with precision within 10 ft of anything. Snow dies at Nameless?s hands to get Nameless within 10ft of the king, and Sword unable to bear the loss of his beloved kills himself.( This whole section is in Blue)
Nameless agrees that the king was correct and that he too was an Assassin and that he came to know that his family too was killed by Qin?s army and want to avenge his family.
He says he could kill the king at any moment. Qk asks him why he was hesitating to kill him. Nameless tells him that something Sword said has been bothering him and relates to the king how the events actually took place.
My Personal thoughts on this : This is a beautiful movie, but I am a bit bothered about the message it carries.
While the whole world is watching the show of power and arrogance of the world?s superpower; nobody is looking at Asia?s backyard.
First Tibet, then Honk Kong, next Taiwan are merging into China?s mainland. In the Arena where politics has no place (Olympics) Taiwan was forced to be called Chinese Taipei.
China has its eyes on India?s Northeast.
This film might provide the littlest justification it needs for such actions?.or may be I?m just being paranoid.