HERO - DVD review

The Eddie:
Before I begin reviewing "Ying Xiong" (2002), I want to clarify two things.

One, comparisons to "Rashomon" are mis-guided because in "Rashomon", several characters tell different versions of the truth. In "Ying Xiong", ONE character tells different lies. This makes "Ying Xiong" similar to "The Usual Suspects", NOT "Rashomon". Yes, there's a flashback structure, but unless one claims that all movies with flashbacks are the same, then a differentiation between "Ying Xiong" and "Rashomon" must be made.

Also, a lot of viewers with knowledge of the Chinese language have complained about translating Broken Sword's "Tian Xia" message to Nameless as "Our Land". As a purist, I'm going to defend the "Our Land" translation. While "Our Land" is not a literal translation of "Tian Xia", which literally means "Under the Heavens", it is more accurate than the literal translation because literally "Under the Heavens" doesn't mean anything in either Chinese or English. "Tian Xia" is an expression that refers to the state of affairs in the whole world. Since Chinese culture has traditionally been ethnocentric in nature, "Tian Xia" in this instance should be understood as pertaining to a pan-Chinese view of territories inhabited by people living in the area known as China today. The only way to explicate "Under the Heavens" would be to give someone extensive lessons on history, culture, linguistics, and semiotics. "Our Land" is a concise, accurate translation of what "Tian Xia" "means" in the Chinese language.

To give you another example, take John Woo's "Zong Heng Si Hai" ("Once a Thief"). "Zong Heng Si Hai" is an expression that refers to seeking adventure, fortune, and glory wherever one may be in the world. Literally, the words "zong heng si hai" mean "roaming the four seas", but the phrase does not mean what it literally describes. "Si hai" literally means "four seas", but the Chinese use "si hai" to refer to the whole world. Therefore, the best translation of "zong heng si hai" is "Fortune favors the bold".

There are three kinds of cinemas: cinema of narrative, cinema of art, and cinema of ideas. A lot of Americans went to see Zhang Yimou's "Ying Xiong" ("Hero") expecting another "Wo Hu Cang Long" ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"), and they left theatres whining about how the story wasn't anything special. They missed the point. "Ying Xiong" is cinema of art and cinema of ideas; the narrative is only a framework for conveying a heightened expression of certain aspects of Chinese culture and Chinese politics. It's true that the story in "Ying Xiong" is a piffle, but if you watch movies only to be told stories, then you have a narrow-minded view of what cinema can accomplish.

My colleague John Puccio has given a warm appraisal of the movie's visual style. The only thing that I would like to add to John's discussion of the movie as cinema of art is that "Ying Xiong" isn't really about fighting. Rather, it's about dancing--swirling bodies, fabrics, colors. The movie is poetry of movement, if you will.

"Ying Xiong" informs viewers that, during the Period of Warring States, six kingdoms in East Asia tried to resist the King of Qin. Various assassins were sent to kill the King of Qin, but he eventually conquered his neighbors and became Qin Shi Huang Di, the first emperor of China and the architect of the Great Wall of China. Chen Kaige, another great Fifth Generation director, covered similar territory with 1999's "Jing Ke Ci Qin Wang" ("The Emperor and the Assassin").

Really, there's not much more to the plot. There aren't any crazy twists, and any subterfuge is quickly unveiled. What remains, then, are how the movie relates its plot and what ideas the movie offers.

I admit that I had a dim view of "Ying Xiong" after my first viewing. I thought that it was just a bunch of fight scenes in varying colors strung together to capitalize on the success of "Wo Hu Cang Long". However, since my first viewing of "Ying Xiong", there has been much thoughtful criticism written about it. My second viewing of "Ying Xiong" was enlightening, indeed. In fact, I was moved to tears by the philosophical implications of the internal tensions that propelled the narrative and its ideas.

In "Ying Xiong", an assassin (Nameless, played by Jet Li) who originally wants to kill the King of Qin (played by Chen Daoming) changes his mind after agreeing with an adversary that the King of Qin's goal of unifying the various Chinese kingdoms is a cause that will bring peace to the Chinese people. At the end of the movie, the hegemonic King of Qin remains in power, and some epilogic text lionizes his historical achievements. The movie's main theme--that of acquiescing to an authority with a national vision--has been described as fascistic and blindly nationalistic by some movie reviewers and scholars (www.filmint.nu/netonly/eng/
heroevanschan.htm). Some viewers have even read the movie as a justification of China's aggressive military policies towards its western provinces as well as Taiwan.

Understandably, some people are incensed by Zhang Yimou's apparent submission to the totalitarian rulers in mainland China. What's more, a member of the cast, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, was rumored to have said that the Chinese government was right in cracking down on the student protestors in Tiananmen Square. However, while the main theme supports the "One China Under One Rule" concept, the movie also laments the high cost of "national" unification (almost all of the noble protagonists die).

Martial-arts movies--of both the wuxia (swordfighting) and gongfu (fistfighting) varieties--have long been used as signifiers of a "national" Chinese cinema. Jet Li starred in Tsui Hark's "Huang Feihong" ("Once Upon a Time in China") series, in which folk hero Huang Feihong beat the crap out of foreign devils who had guns. For "Wo Hu Cang Long", director Ang Lee drew upon the resources of Chinese people from all over the world in order to make a movie that calls for a pan-Chinese view of "The Dragon's Descendents".

I felt sad seeing so many good characters die in the movie. Yet, their deaths are necessary. In order for the King of Qin to establish a strong China, the rule of law must be maintained. Chinese rule of law--not Zhao or Wei or Han or even Qin--understandably marginalizes people who want to remain divided (and by extension, weak). In "Ying Xiong", the King of Qin realizes this cruel dichotomy and sheds tears for the high costs of his vision.

Yes, I am American, but I am also Chinese. I agree with the ideas that "Ying Xiong" espouses. Understand that "Ying Xiong" does not advocate the suppression of individualism in favor of nationalism. Indeed, individuals are exalted--from each of the skilled warriors who opposed Qin aggression to the King of Qin himself. I would argue that "Ying Xiong" seeks a synthesis of individual determination and national power.

This might sound like troubling news to you, and it should trouble you to some extent. The greatest movies challenge us to perceive the world in philosophical terms. Only pandering, clichéd, routine pap comforts viewers with straight-forward narratives that smart viewers can anticipate.

Video:
The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen picture is a disgrace. Widely hailed as one of the most beautiful movies of the past ten years (and possibly of all time), the image is excessively grainy on DVD. I saw "Ying Xiong" in a movie theatre with a large screen, and I sat fairly close to the screen. If I did not see a lot of grain sitting close to a blown-up version of the image, then I should not see as much grain as I do with the DVD. The grain is so bad that it could actually be video noise arising from poor authoring rather than actual film grain. There were times when it felt like I was watching the movie through a mosquito net.

Moreover, the transfer is also dull and lacking in contrast. Zhang Yimou and his team used strong primary colors. On DVD, the reds are not red enough, and the blacks are not black enough. Therefore, you get red-orange and very dark grey, which makes the movie rather ugly.

The film print that was used for the DVD is not free of scratches or other blemishes, and no one bothered fixing those problems when mastering the disc. What's more, the transfer is often too soft. When you consider that the DVD has two useless audio tracks (English and French dubs), it's actually infuriating that the Buena Vista didn't give the video all the care that it requires.

Audio:
The quality of the primary Dolby Digital 5.1 Mandarin Chinese track is much better than the quality of the video. The audio is very active, giving each speaker plenty of things to shoot into the viewing space. Dialogue is always crisp and clear--key to giving audiences the pleasure of hearing the actors' excellent line deliveries.

However, all is not well. A lot of low-frequency effects (LFEs) sound muddled and messy. Also, for all the hustle and bustle in the rear speakers, the sound design is simply too apparent to be "natural". You can tell exactly which speaker is doing what, so you don't get a 360-degree experience. I'm not sure if this is a problem with the sound engineering or the DVD mastering, but I can tell you that the audio is very good but not great.

The DVD also offers DD 5.1 English and DD 5.1 French dubs (a waste of space and time) as well as a DTS 5.1 Mandarin Chinese track. Optional English and Spanish subtitles support the audio.

Extras:
The Region 1 offers a slate of trifling extras. To be fair, based on what I've seen/heard/read about other "Ying Xiong" DVDs, I don't think that anyone's yet compiled a worthwhile set of bonuses. For a variety of reasons, "Ying Xiong" deserves a double-dip.

The first and best supplement is "'Hero' Defined", a making-of featurette that covers a lot of bases (albeit superficially). While better than the usual promotional fluff, "'Hero' Defined" doesn't delve as deeply into the movie as I want a documentary to do. After all, the interviews and the information were taken during production rather than after the movie was completed.

"Inside the Action: A Conversation With Quentin Tarantino & Jet Li" is a generally lamentable travesty. I loved Tarantino's "Kill Bill" movies; this doesn't mean that Tarantino is qualified to talk about "Ying Xiong". Tarantino focuses on the movie's "fights" while apparently missing the point that the movie is more about dancing than fighting. Jet Li's limited command of English means that he doesn't really get to talk about the movie's themes in a meaningful manner. It would've been great had someone gotten Li to talk about the movie in Chinese so that he could really get at the meat of the matter.

Finally, you can look at some storyboards.

--Miscellaneous--
Buena Vista is an odd creature these days. Sometimes you get an insert, and sometimes you don't. This is one of those "don't" times. #@&%.

By the way, the cover art is atrocious. On the front, Jet Li is wielding a weapon that he does not use at all in the movie. Also, Zhang Ziyi's presence is mis-leading because she plays a tertiary character; someone unfamiliar with the movie might think that Li and Zhang play lovers.

Film Value:
"Ying Xiong" is a great movie, and like all great movies, it is largely mis-understood. I know that my review feels like a lecture, but I feel so strongly about this movie that I'm tired of people saying mis-informed things about it. Okay, now I'm just belligerent, so I'll stop.

Just watch the movie, okay?

By the way, Buena Vista--I want a DVD edition that does "Ying Xiong" justice!!!

The John:
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once."
--William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"

"Hero" is a movie of contradictions, most of them good.

First, while "Hero" is essentially a nonstop ninety-odd minutes of sword fighting, it is one of the most visually beautiful films ever made. I purposely watched it in its English dub, something I wouldn't usually do, because I didn't want the English subtitles to distract me from the moving pictures I was watching. Yes, they are that appealing. Not only are the fighting episodes aesthetically pleasing in their balletic grace and preternatural gymnastics, the backgrounds and settings are magnificent. The colors in the film are radiant, glowing, each frame like a tapestry, the various sequences a kaleidoscope of hues, the cinematography a joy to behold. A slow-motion fight sequence through individual raindrops is amazing. Showers of arrows on a calligraphy school, accompanied by the sounds of thousands of surface strikes in the surrounds, is awesome. A fight amidst yellow autumn leaves is spectacular. A two-man battle on the surface of a mountain lake is profoundly tranquil in its simplicity. And the solo violin of Itzhak Perlman is sublime.

The main character, "Nameless," says that "the brush and the sword are intrinsically connected." In the case of this film, art and war are inseparable. It is said that China is the most populous country on earth, and it appears that most of its citizenry were enlisted to participate in this production. While the CGI and special-effects craftsmanship are astonishing, they cannot eclipse the live-action segments. Director Zhang Yimou has truly captured on screen the "art" of war.

Second, while there has been much mention in the press and elsewhere about how the structure of "Hero" resembles Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon," the similarities are really pretty slender. Where the four varying points of view in Kurosawa's tale were essential to the narrative, in "Hero" the three flashback versions of events are used mainly to cover the fact that there is very little story to tell. The account that Nameless provides, the account the king gives, and the final account Nameless offers make for fascinating twists and changes of pace, but they are not essential to our understanding of the movie's characters or events as they are in Kurosawa's film.

"In a war, there are heroes on both sides." --Prologue
"A warrior's ultimate act is to lay down his sword." --Jet Li, Nameless

Third, while the star of "Hero," Jet Li, is mainly known to Western audiences for his amazing athletic elegance and his martial-arts films, in "Hero" he is not asked to punch anybody out. Instead, as the main character, he is called upon to act and react, and to use his physical and combat skills in the art of sword fighting. He still has plenty of action scenes, to be sure, but they are artistically rendered so as to more resemble classical ballet or modern dance than the brutal contests audiences may be expecting. In the entire film, not more than a couple of drops of blood are ever spilled, notwithstanding the almost constant warring.

Fourth, while we are used to the women in a martial-arts film generally playing subordinate or supporting roles, the two women in "Hero" are of almost equal importance with the main character. What's more, they possess equal fighting abilities with the main character. And perhaps of greatest significance, while the two women, Maggie Cheung as Snow and Zhang Ziyi as Moon, are necessary to the plot as tangential combatants, they provide as much beauty to the film as any of the art director's magnificent landscapes, their personal luminosity lighting up every scene they're in. Cheung is lovely, and Ziyi is exquisite.

Fifth, while the ending of "Hero" displays an uncommon warmth and sentiment, the film overall is a touch cold and distant, this despite its incredible beauty, as though the director, Zhang Yimou, were showing us slides of his most-recent exotic vacation. In this regard, I was reminded of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," and I have the feeling that Kubrick would have appreciated Yimou's work quite as much as I did. As I said before, every frame in the movie is a pleasure to look at, even if the story itself is more straightforward than its somewhat convoluted narrative structure would lead us to believe.

Sixth, while the film's most enriching asset is its color, it's a shame that Miramax/Buena Vista didn't transfer it to disc at a higher bit rate. The colors and picture are still good, mind you, but there is also present a faint smearing, a noticeably light grain, and a very slight wavering of lines. I can understand BV's desire to compress the transfer as much as possible in order to fit it and the various extras onto a single disc, but this is a movie that cries out for the highest possible bit-rate transfer, perhaps in a two-disc set where the extras would not interfere with the room taken up by the picture itself. Oh, well...

Finally, while the keep case prominently announces "Quentin Tarantino Presents," it is not a Tarantino production. Because of his love of martial-arts films, his work with "Kill Bill," and the familiarity of his name to audiences worldwide, Tarantino gets top billing so to speak by helping to sponsor the movie in the U.S. I mean, so much trash makes its way to DVD overnight, and a terrific film like "Hero" takes almost two years to find an American distributor? Where's the justice in that? Maybe we should be thankful for any help at all that Tarantino lent to BV's acquiring the distribution rights.

"Our land." --Rallying cry

While the tradition of China's first uniting under one rule has basis in fact, I don't know if the details of the various assassination accounts in this filmed version are anything more than legend. But like so many legends, they make for a wonderful story. More to the point, "Hero" is retold by Zhang Yimou in a series of stunningly ravishing visuals. I loved almost every minute of everything I saw. For me, an easy 8/10 at least.