Hero

Hero is an engaging film about the first emperor of the Qin dynasty, and the “hero” who tells the story of how he has helped to defend the kingdom. The title is based on the character “Nameless”, and the story that leads him to sit before the emperor with the swords of three assassins. The film follows three versions of Nameless’ travels: first Nameless’ version of how he obtains the swords, then what the emperor believes happened, and finally the true sequence of events. Zhang Yimou’s brilliant use of color allows the viewer to easily follow each storyline as the colors of the characters’ clothing change according to each retelling.

The complex story lines in Hero show how different aspects of the same story can be twisted to someone’s own agenda. Zhang Yimou successfully takes each storyline a step further, showing how just one piece of information can change the entire outcome of a story. For example, the image of Nameless is constantly in flux: from hero to assassin and back again. These aspects of the film are interesting and draw the viewer in enough that it can be easy to overlook some of the flaws in the storyline.

In the third telling of Nameless’ story, we discover that he has indeed set out to assassinate the emperor. This is where the story becomes rather odd. Nameless claims that he was an orphan brought up in the Qin Kingdom, but later discovered that he was born in the Zhou Kingdom. Because of this discovery, he has decided he must defend the Zhou against the kingdom and culture in which he grew up. Yet, where does this loyalty come from? If anything, it would make more sense to defend the Kingdom which sheltered him and fight against the Kingdom from which the family who abandoned him came. The story attempts to mostly imply Nameless’ reasoning, but instead this important plot point ends up mostly ignored. 

The film’s philosophical ramblings on the symbolism of the character for sword and sacrifice for the greater good cover up some of these more questionable plot lines, as the symbolism becomes more important than the story itself. Even the martial arts become secondary to the ideals of peace. All of the assassins in the film, as well as the emperor himself, contemplate the importance of honor and whether or not a life should be given for the greater good. Much of the actually fighting done in the film is the result of deception and these philosophical debates rather than simply being fights to the top.

Overall, the film is artistically beautiful, and the martial arts live up to the standards for the genre. The storyline itself has a lot of potential in concept, but the film fails to completely carry it out. Were the plot behind the fighting and philosophical ponderings more filled out, the film would have been more complete.