Hero

The story took place during the warring period in China when it was divided into seven different kingdoms and the emperor of the Qin Dynasty wanted to conquer them all. However, the emperor is constantly plagued by the assassination attempts of three elite assassins, Sky, Flying Snow, and Broken Sword. A fourth assassin, Nameless, is given access to being able to stand 10 paces from the emperor for his efforts in killing the other three assassins, and thus begins the tale.

As others have already mentioned, Zhang Yimou does a good job of incorporating colors into his setting and using it to portray the themes of deceit, betrayal, love, peace, and war. The first color, red, was used when Nameless told the fake story of how he killed Sky, Sword, and Snow and appear as the color of the costumes characters wore. I feel that Zhang is using red to display deceit and betrayal. Red is also the color of blood, so in a sense Zhang is saying that deceit and betrayal usually lead to blood and death or something around those lines. Also, the color of the falling leaves during the scene when Moon tries to kill Snow was also leaning towards a very red-orange. Red can also be thought of as stop. The king of the Qin Dynasty then gives his impression of what he thinks was the real story, and this time costume colors change to blue. Blue can also be tied to the color of the sky or the sea, both which are natural existences, so it is as if Zhang is saying that what the king thinks should be considered the same way and people should abide by the king’s orders regardless. Also, Nameless said that Sword left him the two words “Tian Xia” (Under the sky), as if saying that anything under the sky is like the domain of the king. Finally, we have the actual story of what went on, with this time characters wearing white. White can be thought of as purity or pure as snow, lacking color and devoid of being tampered or tarnished, and that is a good description befitting truth. Another thing I noticed was that up until now, the colors being used have been red, blue, and white, which are exactly the colors of the American flag, so it is possible that Zhang meant to aim at an American audience with this movie, similar to the efforts of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There is another color, green, that is used when Sword talks about the incident of the failed assassination attempt on the king three years ago. I figured Zhang used green to show this part of the flashback because green is the color of most vegetables and plants and is the symbol of life, and the failed assassination attempt meant the king was not killed, so green is an optimal choice.

Other than that, this movie is went very deep into the roots of Chinese culture, with its portrayal of Chinese calligraphy and combining it with swordsmanship to create a single state of mind, something similar to ancient Chinese philosophy (not sure if it has to do with Dao or not?). Another lesson from the movie is the idea that the one person’s suffering cannot compete with the suffering of tens of millions of citizens and so therefore if suppressing one’s suffering can allow for tens of millions of people to obtain peace, that one person should follow through for the “greater good” of the people. This is used in the movie since at the end we find that the king cannot be killed to satisfy one’s plan of revenge if that king can unite China and bring peace to all of the people.