I would argue that 'Ying Xiong' seeks a synthesis of individual determination and national power.
The DVD also offers DD 5.1 English and DD 5.1 French dubs (a waste of space and time) as well as a DTS 5.1 Mandarin Chinese track. Optional English and Spanish subtitles support the audio.
Extras:
The Region 1 offers a slate of trifling extras. To be fair, based on what I've seen/heard/read about other "Ying Xiong" DVDs, I don't think that anyone's yet compiled a worthwhile set of bonuses. For a variety of reasons, "Ying Xiong" deserves a double-dip.
The first and best supplement is "'Hero' Defined", a making-of featurette that covers a lot of bases (albeit superficially). While better than the usual promotional fluff, "'Hero' Defined" doesn't delve as deeply into the movie as I want a documentary to do. After all, the interviews and the information were taken during production rather than after the movie was completed.
"Inside the Action: A Conversation With Quentin Tarantino & Jet Li" is a generally lamentable travesty. I loved Tarantino's "Kill Bill" movies; this doesn't mean that Tarantino is qualified to talk about "Ying Xiong". Tarantino focuses on the movie's "fights" while apparently missing the point that the movie is more about dancing than fighting. Jet Li's limited command of English means that he doesn't really get to talk about the movie's themes in a meaningful manner. It would've been great had someone gotten Li to talk about the movie in Chinese so that he could really get at the meat of the matter.
Finally, you can look at some storyboards.
--Miscellaneous--
Buena Vista is an odd creature these days. Sometimes you get an insert, and sometimes you don't. This is one of those "don't" times. #@&%.
By the way, the cover art is atrocious. On the front, Jet Li is wielding a weapon that he does not use at all in the movie. Also, Zhang Ziyi's presence is mis-leading because she plays a tertiary character; someone unfamiliar with the movie might think that Li and Zhang play lovers.
Film Value:
"Ying Xiong" is a great movie, and like all great movies, it is largely mis-understood. I know that my review feels like a lecture, but I feel so strongly about this movie that I'm tired of people saying mis-informed things about it. Okay, now I'm just belligerent, so I'll stop.
Just watch the movie, okay?
By the way, Buena Vista--I want a DVD edition that does "Ying Xiong" justice!!!
The John:
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once."
--William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
"Hero" is a movie of contradictions, most of them good.
First, while "Hero" is essentially a nonstop ninety-odd minutes of sword fighting, it is one of the most visually beautiful films ever made. I purposely watched it in its English dub, something I wouldn't usually do, because I didn't want the English subtitles to distract me from the moving pictures I was watching. Yes, they are that appealing. Not only are the fighting episodes aesthetically pleasing in their balletic grace and preternatural gymnastics, the backgrounds and settings are magnificent. The colors in the film are radiant, glowing, each frame like a tapestry, the various sequences a kaleidoscope of hues, the cinematography a joy to behold. A slow-motion fight sequence through individual raindrops is amazing. Showers of arrows on a calligraphy school, accompanied by the sounds of thousands of surface strikes in the surrounds, is awesome. A fight amidst yellow autumn leaves is spectacular. A two-man battle on the surface of a mountain lake is profoundly tranquil in its simplicity. And the solo violin of Itzhak Perlman is sublime.
The main character, "Nameless," says that "the brush and the sword are intrinsically connected." In the case of this film, art and war are inseparable. It is said that China is the most populous country on earth, and it appears that most of its citizenry were enlisted to participate in this production. While the CGI and special-effects craftsmanship are astonishing, they cannot eclipse the live-action segments. Director Zhang Yimou has truly captured on screen the "art" of war.
Second, while there has been much mention in the press and elsewhere about how the structure of "Hero" resembles Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon," the similarities are really pretty slender. Where the four varying points of view in Kurosawa's tale were essential to the narrative, in "Hero" the three flashback versions of events are used mainly to cover the fact that there is very little story to tell. The account that Nameless provides, the account the king gives, and the final account Nameless offers make for fascinating twists and changes of pace, but they are not essential to our understanding of the movie's characters or events as they are in Kurosawa's film.
"In a war, there are heroes on both sides." --Prologue
"A warrior's ultimate act is to lay down his sword." --Jet Li, Nameless
Third, while the star of "Hero," Jet Li, is mainly known to Western audiences for his amazing athletic elegance and his martial-arts films, in "Hero" he is not asked to punch anybody out. Instead, as the main character, he is called upon to act and react, and to use his physical and combat skills in the art of sword fighting. He still has plenty of action scenes, to be sure, but they are artistically rendered so as to more resemble classical ballet or modern dance than the brutal contests audiences may be expecting. In the entire film, not more than a couple of drops of blood are ever spilled, notwithstanding the almost constant warring.
Fourth, while we are used to the women in a martial-arts film generally playing subordinate or supporting roles, the two women in "Hero" are of almost equal importance with the main character. What's more, they possess equal fighting abilities with the main character. And perhaps of greatest significance, while the two women, Maggie Cheung as Snow and Zhang Ziyi as Moon, are necessary to the plot as tangential combatants, they provide as much beauty to the film as any of the art director's magnificent landscapes, their personal luminosity lighting up every scene they're in. Cheung is lovely, and Ziyi is exquisite.
Fifth, while the ending of "Hero" displays an uncommon warmth and sentiment, the film overall is a touch cold and distant, this despite its incredible beauty, as though the director, Zhang Yimou, were showing us slides of his most-recent exotic vacation. In this regard, I was reminded of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," and I have the feeling that Kubrick would have appreciated Yimou's work quite as much as I did. As I said before, every frame in the movie is a pleasure to look at, even if the story itself is more straightforward than its somewhat convoluted narrative structure would lead us to believe.
Sixth, while the film's most enriching asset is its color, it's a shame that Miramax/Buena Vista didn't transfer it to disc at a higher bit rate. The colors and picture are still good, mind you, but there is also present a faint smearing, a noticeably light grain, and a very slight wavering of lines. I can understand BV's desire to compress the transfer as much as possible in order to fit it and the various extras onto a single disc, but this is a movie that cries out for the highest possible bit-rate transfer, perhaps in a two-disc set where the extras would not interfere with the room taken up by the picture itself. Oh, well...
Finally, while the keep case prominently announces "Quentin Tarantino Presents," it is not a Tarantino production. Because of his love of martial-arts films, his work with "Kill Bill," and the familiarity of his name to audiences worldwide, Tarantino gets top billing so to speak by helping to sponsor the movie in the U.S. I mean, so much trash makes its way to DVD overnight, and a terrific film like "Hero" takes almost two years to find an American distributor? Where's the justice in that? Maybe we should be thankful for any help at all that Tarantino lent to BV's acquiring the distribution rights.
"Our land." --Rallying cry
While the tradition of China's first uniting under one rule has basis in fact, I don't know if the details of the various assassination accounts in this filmed version are anything more than legend. But like so many legends, they make for a wonderful story. More to the point, "Hero" is retold by Zhang Yimou in a series of stunningly ravishing visuals. I loved almost every minute of everything I saw. For me, an easy 8/10 at least.
Extras:
The Region 1 offers a slate of trifling extras. To be fair, based on what I've seen/heard/read about other "Ying Xiong" DVDs, I don't think that anyone's yet compiled a worthwhile set of bonuses. For a variety of reasons, "Ying Xiong" deserves a double-dip.
The first and best supplement is "'Hero' Defined", a making-of featurette that covers a lot of bases (albeit superficially). While better than the usual promotional fluff, "'Hero' Defined" doesn't delve as deeply into the movie as I want a documentary to do. After all, the interviews and the information were taken during production rather than after the movie was completed.
"Inside the Action: A Conversation With Quentin Tarantino & Jet Li" is a generally lamentable travesty. I loved Tarantino's "Kill Bill" movies; this doesn't mean that Tarantino is qualified to talk about "Ying Xiong". Tarantino focuses on the movie's "fights" while apparently missing the point that the movie is more about dancing than fighting. Jet Li's limited command of English means that he doesn't really get to talk about the movie's themes in a meaningful manner. It would've been great had someone gotten Li to talk about the movie in Chinese so that he could really get at the meat of the matter.
Finally, you can look at some storyboards.
--Miscellaneous--
Buena Vista is an odd creature these days. Sometimes you get an insert, and sometimes you don't. This is one of those "don't" times. #@&%.
By the way, the cover art is atrocious. On the front, Jet Li is wielding a weapon that he does not use at all in the movie. Also, Zhang Ziyi's presence is mis-leading because she plays a tertiary character; someone unfamiliar with the movie might think that Li and Zhang play lovers.
Film Value:
"Ying Xiong" is a great movie, and like all great movies, it is largely mis-understood. I know that my review feels like a lecture, but I feel so strongly about this movie that I'm tired of people saying mis-informed things about it. Okay, now I'm just belligerent, so I'll stop.
Just watch the movie, okay?
By the way, Buena Vista--I want a DVD edition that does "Ying Xiong" justice!!!
The John:
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once."
--William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
"Hero" is a movie of contradictions, most of them good.
First, while "Hero" is essentially a nonstop ninety-odd minutes of sword fighting, it is one of the most visually beautiful films ever made. I purposely watched it in its English dub, something I wouldn't usually do, because I didn't want the English subtitles to distract me from the moving pictures I was watching. Yes, they are that appealing. Not only are the fighting episodes aesthetically pleasing in their balletic grace and preternatural gymnastics, the backgrounds and settings are magnificent. The colors in the film are radiant, glowing, each frame like a tapestry, the various sequences a kaleidoscope of hues, the cinematography a joy to behold. A slow-motion fight sequence through individual raindrops is amazing. Showers of arrows on a calligraphy school, accompanied by the sounds of thousands of surface strikes in the surrounds, is awesome. A fight amidst yellow autumn leaves is spectacular. A two-man battle on the surface of a mountain lake is profoundly tranquil in its simplicity. And the solo violin of Itzhak Perlman is sublime.
The main character, "Nameless," says that "the brush and the sword are intrinsically connected." In the case of this film, art and war are inseparable. It is said that China is the most populous country on earth, and it appears that most of its citizenry were enlisted to participate in this production. While the CGI and special-effects craftsmanship are astonishing, they cannot eclipse the live-action segments. Director Zhang Yimou has truly captured on screen the "art" of war.
Second, while there has been much mention in the press and elsewhere about how the structure of "Hero" resembles Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon," the similarities are really pretty slender. Where the four varying points of view in Kurosawa's tale were essential to the narrative, in "Hero" the three flashback versions of events are used mainly to cover the fact that there is very little story to tell. The account that Nameless provides, the account the king gives, and the final account Nameless offers make for fascinating twists and changes of pace, but they are not essential to our understanding of the movie's characters or events as they are in Kurosawa's film.
"In a war, there are heroes on both sides." --Prologue
"A warrior's ultimate act is to lay down his sword." --Jet Li, Nameless
Third, while the star of "Hero," Jet Li, is mainly known to Western audiences for his amazing athletic elegance and his martial-arts films, in "Hero" he is not asked to punch anybody out. Instead, as the main character, he is called upon to act and react, and to use his physical and combat skills in the art of sword fighting. He still has plenty of action scenes, to be sure, but they are artistically rendered so as to more resemble classical ballet or modern dance than the brutal contests audiences may be expecting. In the entire film, not more than a couple of drops of blood are ever spilled, notwithstanding the almost constant warring.
Fourth, while we are used to the women in a martial-arts film generally playing subordinate or supporting roles, the two women in "Hero" are of almost equal importance with the main character. What's more, they possess equal fighting abilities with the main character. And perhaps of greatest significance, while the two women, Maggie Cheung as Snow and Zhang Ziyi as Moon, are necessary to the plot as tangential combatants, they provide as much beauty to the film as any of the art director's magnificent landscapes, their personal luminosity lighting up every scene they're in. Cheung is lovely, and Ziyi is exquisite.
Fifth, while the ending of "Hero" displays an uncommon warmth and sentiment, the film overall is a touch cold and distant, this despite its incredible beauty, as though the director, Zhang Yimou, were showing us slides of his most-recent exotic vacation. In this regard, I was reminded of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," and I have the feeling that Kubrick would have appreciated Yimou's work quite as much as I did. As I said before, every frame in the movie is a pleasure to look at, even if the story itself is more straightforward than its somewhat convoluted narrative structure would lead us to believe.
Sixth, while the film's most enriching asset is its color, it's a shame that Miramax/Buena Vista didn't transfer it to disc at a higher bit rate. The colors and picture are still good, mind you, but there is also present a faint smearing, a noticeably light grain, and a very slight wavering of lines. I can understand BV's desire to compress the transfer as much as possible in order to fit it and the various extras onto a single disc, but this is a movie that cries out for the highest possible bit-rate transfer, perhaps in a two-disc set where the extras would not interfere with the room taken up by the picture itself. Oh, well...
Finally, while the keep case prominently announces "Quentin Tarantino Presents," it is not a Tarantino production. Because of his love of martial-arts films, his work with "Kill Bill," and the familiarity of his name to audiences worldwide, Tarantino gets top billing so to speak by helping to sponsor the movie in the U.S. I mean, so much trash makes its way to DVD overnight, and a terrific film like "Hero" takes almost two years to find an American distributor? Where's the justice in that? Maybe we should be thankful for any help at all that Tarantino lent to BV's acquiring the distribution rights.
"Our land." --Rallying cry
While the tradition of China's first uniting under one rule has basis in fact, I don't know if the details of the various assassination accounts in this filmed version are anything more than legend. But like so many legends, they make for a wonderful story. More to the point, "Hero" is retold by Zhang Yimou in a series of stunningly ravishing visuals. I loved almost every minute of everything I saw. For me, an easy 8/10 at least.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]13119[/release]