Zhang Yimou pleased audiences worldwide as well as the Chinese government when he released his artistic creation, Hero, in 2002. Hero is not just a film—it is a true work of art with each scene flowing with beautiful Chinese music, drenched in vivid hues of color, and even incorporating elements of dance. Although the storyline is a simple one, Zhang Yimou captivates his audience by using elaborate techniques to tell it.
Hero presents the art of storytelling through Zhang Yimou’s use of smaller stories in combination with artistic elements to tell the larger, main story of the film. In the opening scene, the protagonist, Nameless (Jet Li), is seated in front of the King of Qin (Daoming Chen) and must explain how he assassinated some of the greatest swordsman masters that were after the emperor and what his motives were to do so. The following scenes are a series of stories, each painted in its own specific color of red, blue, white, and green—with each color representing a different aspect or emotion. The fabricated story in red that Nameless tells draws feelings of lust and anger; the story in blue that the Qin emperor tells is full of romantic ideals, sadness, and loss; the story in white tells of truth and death; and lastly the story in green told by Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), represents the past as well as life, which the king’s is spared. After the audience, along with the King of Qin, discerns which story is the real one, we learn the moral of Hero’s story— that a hero is not necessarily one that slays the antagonist, or the “bad guy” so to speak, but that can change his ways for the better without violence and through the power of stories to reach a person’s emotions and humanity.
Nameless’ use of stories and words to fight his ultimate battle with the King of Qin attests to the idea of perception throughout this film. If you delve deeper beyond the surface level of physical swordplay you discover that the film is not so much a battle of swords but rather a battle of minds. The several fight scenes that occur only in the mind are physical representations of the psychological battle that is occurring between Nameless and the King of Qin. Fooling the audience as he fools the king, Nameless seems as if he has physically stabbed and murdered the king until the camera zooms into his sword, revealing that he had only frightened the king with the handle end of sword. In addition, we initially perceive that Nameless has selfishly killed all the other assassins who were supposedly his friends until we learn he has only put pressure points on them as an illusion that they have been killed. With this, Zhang Yimou is showing us that not everything is as it seems and it is important to sort through the stories to find the truth.
Furthermore, like in his earlier film, To Live, Zhang Yimou seems to like the use of irony by juxtaposing opposites. In one of the opening scenes, there is a period without dialogue but rather a brilliant swordplay fight between Nameless and Sky (Donnie Yen) that follows the rhythm and flow of the traditional Chinese piano (Guqin) being played in the background. In a later swordplay scene involving Nameless and Broken Sword, the two characters fly effortlessly through the air and dance on water as they battle each other in a serene mountain landscape. The images are beautiful but ironic because fighting and battle are usually depicted as violent and suspenseful, not graceful and elegant like they are in Hero. All the battle scenes are portrayed almost as a dance—on beat, to a rhythm, and with a continuous flow.
As artistic and beautiful as the film is, there are some subtle political undertones per usual for Zhang Yimou’s films. Hero presents the idea that a good ruler should rule for the people and have his people’s best interests in mind rather than his own. The King of Qin learns the three achievements of swordsmanship, where the ultimate achievement is “the absence of sword in both hand and heart, the swordsman is at peace with the rest of the world; he vows not to kill and to bring peace to mankind.” Nameless helps the king discover that he is the ultimate swordsman and must commit to these ideals: to stop the chaos and killing and to “unite all under Heaven.”
I got the opposite impression when I first saw this film a few years ago.
ReplyDeletemy 10 year old cousins loved it, and they would watch it over and over again but the parents and old kids were disappointed. (including myself)
Personally I like the older films that came out in the late 80s and early 90s much more than the films today simply due to the fact that a lot of these film makers are brainwashed and motivated by fame&money. Zhang Yimou is a perfect representation of it.
I really appreciated that fact that you highlighted the schemes of color hues present throughout the movie. I thought it was very effective and really made the movie stand out. I wonder if it's a Chinese thing to incorporation such technique of using color to invoke the audiences emotion? Or something to do with Daoist belief with the setting of the four seasons? Or perhaps it just an artistic move and I'm reading too in it?
ReplyDeleteDanielle I agree that these films are truly motivated by fame and money and like Professor Jen mentioned, Zhang Yimou really did get carried away with the film's massive budget and filming resources. However, you can't help but appreciate the advancement of Chinese films in terms of visual effects and graphics. It really show the capability of how artistic the Chinese films can be.
ReplyDeleteThough I agree that the film would be much better without the CCP's political undertones, in addition a more intricate and developed plot. But what can we say he was tempted to play in Hollywood and he probably needed the CCP to do it.