Hero

Zhang Yimou’s 2002 film Hero’s main character Nameless goes to the kingdom of Qin during the Warring States era in an attempt to assassinate Qin Shihuang, the king of the Qin state. As he fabricates a story for Qin Shihuang about how he killed off the king’s enemies, he is able to step closer and closer to the king, ultimately allowing him to get within the necessary distance to successfully kill the king. Zhang uses this main storyline to continually distinguish between representation and reality, and utilizes every main character in the film to show his audience that there is a huge difference between the two.

Zhang incorporates several historical themes into the movie, including calligraphy and the disunity of China before the unification that would take place under Qin Shihuang. He uses these to establish the historical authenticity of the film. He portrays the representation of Qin Shihuang as a cold-hearted ruthless king who would go to any extent to destroy his enemies and to take over the world. Zhang, nevertheless, clearly integrates a more open interpretation of the king’s character. At the end of the movie, we see the king extremely reluctant to kill off Nameless. This seems to contradict his usual representation as a merciless leader. In fact, his reluctance and temporary compassion towards Nameless helps the audience see that “reality” may not always be the same as what is represented.

Since no one who was present at the time of Qin Shihuang is still alive today, there is essentially no way to be absolutely certain of what he was actually like. We do have records which may indicate factual information, such as the number of people he killed, but that by no means gives us the complete picture of what his emotions were, nor tells us completely how or why he made the decision. In the film, it is clear that it is Qin Shihuang’s followers who end up persuading him to kill Nameless. It will remain uncertain how accurate the representation of Qin Shihuang, or any other historical figure, actually is in reality.

Zhang also utilizes the different color schemes to unfold the different versions of the story of what truly happened. There is the version where everybody wore red, essentially the fabricated version. The blue version seems to be the ideal story version that the king suggested, while the white version represents the real story behind what happened. Zhang again gives us two interpretations from two different perspectives, and then compares it with the truth of what really happens. The real version naturally is similar but not exactly the same as either Nameless’s version or the king’s version. Again, Zhang shows a clear distinction between reality itself and what’s being represented as “reality.”

Through his comparison of factual history versus the representation of history, Zhang uses Hero to relay an underlying message of differentiating between facts and assumptions. It causes us to reflect upon our tendency to jump to conclusions when we face unknown people, events, or things.