There’s a lot that goes into the making of any good action movie. Fight scenes, car chases, shootouts, and just about every kind of set piece known to man require extensive planning and rehearsal time. A director must also know how to block, shoot, and cut an action sequence together if they want to ensure that each lands with maximum impact. Action movies have, of course, existed longer than talkies, and directors have spent the past 100 years working tirelessly to find new ways to outdo their predecessors and continue to thrill audiences. But, in all of that time, very few action movies have ever ascended to the same level of technical and aesthetic brilliance as Hero.
The 2004 film, which hit theaters in the U.S. 20 years ago this week, is one of the most astonishing exercises in cinematic style that any filmmaker has ever attempted. Directed by Zhang Yimou, Hero is essentially a collection of vibrant, monochromatic martial arts sequences that are all executed at the highest possible level. Featuring a cast of some of China’s most talented and beloved movie stars, it is a symphony of movement and editorial cuts that flow seamlessly from one to the other. Like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon before it, Hero invites viewers into a world where warriors who have the power to become literal forces of nature are still governed by the basest of emotions, whether it be rage or grief. The result is a film that is elegant but blunt, musical and yet discordant — a ballet that hits with the force of a thousand closed fists.
Hero plays the greatest hits in Asian cinema
Based loosely on real historical events, Hero is set during the Warring States Period when China was comprised of seven separate kingdoms. It follows Nameless (Jet Li), a master swordsman who is granted a rare audience with the King of Qin (Chen Daoming). The king is in the midst of leading an ongoing military campaign to become the first Emperor of a completely unified China. When he arrives, Nameless tells the King of Qin that he has personally defeated and killed Broken Sword (Shang-Chi star Tony Leung), Flying Snow (In the Mood for Love star Maggie Cheung), and Long Sky (John Wick: Chapter 4 star Donnie Yen), three warriors who had previously attempted to assassinate him. The King of Qin isn’t, however, immediately convinced.
From there, Hero goes on to depict not only Nameless’ telling of the events that paved the path for his royal audience, but also the King of Qin’s suspected version of the same story, as well as the actual truth of the matter, which proves to be a mix of both of its narrators’ perspectives. Its story is a simple one, albeit unconventionally told. The film’s five chapters aren’t just divided by their different narrative purposes, though. Yimou and legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle also visually separate Hero‘s five sections by using eye-catching monochromatic color schemes. Both Nameless’ meeting with the King of Qin and his rain-soaked duel with Yen’s Long Sky, for example, rely primarily on dark shades of black and gray, while one version of Nameless’ confrontations with Leung’s Broken Sword and Cheung’s Flying Snow is set in a world of fiery reds, oranges, and yellows. Another takes place in a sadder and, therefore, largely blue version of reality.
This is a simple stylistic choice that nonetheless elevates Hero above most action movies. It emerges as a thriller with a distinct, maximalist look that, thanks to its alternating color schemes, never fails to set your senses on fire. While it gives both Yimou and Doyle plenty of chances to show off, too, the film’s purposefully evolving color palette isn’t solely a stylistic decision. The film’s predominantly red segment is, notably, one in which Broken Sword and Flying Snow are both governed by feelings of betrayal, jealousy, and heartbreak, while its white and green sections imagine them more as warriors defined instead by their love, determination, sense of unity, and spiritual and political desires. The film’s decision to color code its chapters is additionally supported and reinforced by its subject matter. It makes a certain kind of ingenious sense, after all, for a retelling of the story of China’s unification to itself be a movie comprised of such distinctly different parts.
Hero has some of the best action choreography ever put on film
As impressive as its lighting and coloring is, Hero wouldn’t hold the place it does in action movie history if it weren’t such a pulse-pounding, thrilling martial arts film. Every one of its set pieces, whether it be Nameless and Long Sky’s jaw-dropping first-act duel or Broken Sword and Nameless’ battle across the surface of a tranquil lake, is exquisitely composed and edited. Yimou allows stretches of certain duels to play out in long, unbroken wide shots that make the viewer take in the full beauty of Hero‘s action choreography. He saves his cuts for close-ups that emphasize either the force of certain blows or the impact that the film’s battles have on nature itself. Look, for instance, at the shots of green banners rippling and falling that repeatedly interrupt one showdown or the inserts of Leung and Li’s hands splashing against water that show up throughout another. (That’s to say nothing of Hero‘s biggest and most memorable stylistic swing, in which the death of one character is marked by the sudden changing of falling leaves from yellow to blood red.)
Hero‘s fight scenes are fluid and yet destructive. Its characters are warriors capable of tapping into nature’s elemental powers. They can float on the wind and create tornadoes of leaves that send their enemies careening through the air. The fact that they use their skills to enact harm, however, gives Hero a chance to strike the same rich, alluring balance between beauty and devastation that is at the heart of every great action movie. It’s a musical of violence — a series of highly choreographed, highly stylized dances set to the operatic, ceaseless pounding of war drums. There are even moments, like the two dueling close-ups that come in quick succession as Leung and Daoming’s characters soar through the air toward each other in one scene, in which Hero feels like the greatest live-action anime movie that’s ever been made.
The film still amazes after all these years
It’s difficult to truly capture the power of any great movie with only words and images, and that’s especially true of Hero. It’s a film that is meant to be watched and marveled at — one that repeatedly blows you away and supercharges you at the same time. With the help of his actors and behind-the-scenes collaborators, Yimou successfully managed to raise the bar and show how filmmakers can really use color, editing, blocking, and choreography to deliver action sequences that defy expectation and leave you breathless. Not many other action movies, if any, have been able to match Hero‘s brilliance over the past 20 years, and it seems unlikely that any will in the near future. It is an achievement of gobsmacking scale and precision — an epic that pushes and slashes you into submission. All you can do is gasp and applaud.
Hero is currently streaming for free on Pluto TV.
