HERO-Getting by on Looks Alone

Carla Meyer, a chronicle movie writer, wrote an article for the San Francisco Chronicle titled, "The martial-arts movie 'Hero' kicks butt, but it's also beautiful. In director Zhang Yimou's latest, an ambitious royal epic, color is king." Meyer explains how this film is very different from other martial arts films that we are used to through its use of vibrant colors. The colors illustrated throughout the film tell a story in themselves. For example, the crimson color of the calligraphy instructor's robe and the headmistress' robe matches the ink of the calligraphy, which is shown in sensual scenes of the film. The crimson color illustrates the connection between the characters throughout the film. There exists a hot, sexual relationship between them; however, the fire that burns among them soon begins to die out.

Meyer also talks about the technical parts of the film. She explains how the director never goes overboard with the visual effects. Rather than including a computer generated form of an army of soldiers in the fight scene towards the end of the film, the director places an army composed of real people to give the scene a realistic effect.

Finally, Meyer describes the unnecessary bloodshed scenes in the film. At some points of the film, there are people fighting and killing each other for no apparent reason, or at least ones that the audience finds hard to follow. However, Meyer mentions that these points of the film work in a more ideological perspective, proposing a new idea of heroism, "...one in which dying for a lost cause is just as noble as killing for a winning one" (Meyer 1). Perhaps becoming a hero does not necessarily involve winning for a cause, but rather fighting for something that will be clear in the end.