"Hero" is a film talking about the story of four warriors assassinating Qin Shihuang-the emperor of Qin in the Warring States Period in ancient China. The reason why these assassinator wanted to kill Qin Shihuang was mainly protecting their kingdoms by eliminating the threat of Qin, some wanted to take revenge for their families killed in the wars. The main chracter Nameless spent ten years to practice and planned a way to successfully assassinate Qin Shihuang, however, he gave up the chance and at last because he realized Qin couldn’t be killed, as he was the only one powerful enough to unite China and brought the war period to an ending.
"Hero" also mentioned the importance of loyalties of people to their emperor and kingdoms and obeying the rules and laws in the ancient Chinese culture. In the final theme that Nameless chose not to kill Qin, even Qin didn't want to execute Nameless, but he had to order the soldiers to do so because strictly enforcing the law established was essential and critical for a ruler to sustain his prestige in order to maintain the social orders and nation's power which lead him to the success of uniting China.
The four main characters Sky, Broken Sword and Flying Snow chose to gave up their reputation, love or even their life to support Nameless' assassination plan for their kingdom. This showed that sometimes we have to give up our personal will or benefits if that could achieve a larger will or benefits of the whole society. Considering the personal and the kingdom's perspective, the kingdom should come first.
Broken Sword and Nameless did not kill Qin Shihuang because they realized that Qin is the only one who could stop the war, even though Qin is the one who killed nameless' family. considering the kingdoms' and the world's perspective, the world have to come first.
I believe "Hero" was trying to mention that being the true hero does not mean to be the best or the most powerful person, but a true hero should always have considered the world and the people before anything in the personal perspective. Which is corresponding to the highest stage of jiandao "劍道" mentioned in the movie, the peace of the world.
It is great to see that China has such a long history which contain that many legends that could be transform into an amazing and meaningful movies like "Hero", in addition to the rich history background and storyline, we could also learned the ancient Chinese culture from the movie. Several fighting themes illustrated that using weapons wasn't the only way in fighting a battle, the interactions of ideas in our mind is even more important, therefore, jiandao is interrelated with music and the art of writing that the ideas in our mind is significant.
I wonder who the true hero in the film is? I've been torn between Broken Sword (the first one who sees the bigger picture), the King (who's plan was to unify China in the first place), or Nameless, who realizes it in the end and builds the courage to not go through with the assassination.
ReplyDeleteI think the movie is trying to tell viewers that we can all be heroes. No matter what your prior intentions were (King wanting to ruin towns and take over all other kingdoms) if you try and see the greater good for your people, and do the right things in the end, everyone that is part of that journey are heroes.
ReplyDeleteBroken Sword, the king of Qin, and Nameless, all of them are the true heroes in the film. They sacrificed themselves in their own ways to unify separated kingdoms into one nation. Especially, Nameless waited the moment for many years and finally had a chance to approach 20 paces within the king. He could kill the king or run away from the palace but did not resist the attack. Later, the king of Qin unified different kingdoms. If Nameless killed the king, the history would be changed and more people suffered from the long lasting wars.
ReplyDeleteI think that the Hero is what one thinks of it. The movie is named after that element, thus provoking us to figure out who the Hero is in our eyes.
ReplyDelete