DUers who have seen the movie "Hero". A question (possible spoilers).

[chenGOD]

So I saw the movie a while ago, as it got released long ago over her in Asia. I understand that it recently got released to much acclaim in America. I was browsing the IMDB the other day, when I thought of checking out how this movie was getting reviewed over there. To my surprise I found that a lot of people were talking about it's "overtly communist propgandic message". Now this confused the hell out of me, as anyone who knows anything about China will tell you that the Chinese have for a long time (certainly much longer than the 60 odd years communism has been around in China) been very concerned with keeping the country unified and under one ruler.

So my question (after that long preamble, my apologies) is: do any of you fine upstanding DU members get the sense that this movie contains communist propoganda? And if so, could you explain to me what makes you feel that way?

Thankin' 'ee right kindly I be.

[Khephra]

1. I haven't seen it yet, but there's a thread that touches on this topic

In GD.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2311758&mesg_id=2311758

[BootinUp]

2. Thats funny there was another thread

that claimed it was RW propoganda yesterday. I have not seen it for the record. But I tend not to classify movies by political yardsticks.

[lazarus]

3. I saw none

I saw it as a mythic legend from the unification of China. Nothing communist or right wing to me.

I also thought it was one of the finest examples of wu xia film making I've ever seen.

[chenGOD]

5. Thank you and I agree.

Not even a mythic legend, but one that is most likely at least partly based on fact.
I also agree with you that it's a great example of the wu xia genre, IMO it is much better than Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

People need to understand that Nameless laid down his weapon at the end not for any personal sacrifice but because he felt that the best way to stop all the little wars was to let this emperor live. And you can't judge a person's actions from the past using a modern North American mindset. Hell, even nowadays people from North America have a hard time understanding East Asian culture, and that's with the globalization/glutting of cultural differences and the spread of English throughout the world. So how the hell are we supposed to judge a person's actions from ancient China?

As to the colours used in the film(from your comments in the other thread), the cinematographer is one Christopher Doyle. He's spent a long time in Asia, and is fluent in Mandarin, but I believe this is the first wu xia film he's ever done (I don't really consider Ashes of Time a wu xia movie). So I don't know what effect the colours would have on adding another level of depth to the film.

[lazarus]

6. Thanks

I wasn't sure. But I thought surely there was some relevance to the colour changes beyond simply the frame of reference (i.e. Nameless - red, Emperor - blue, "reality" - white).

There's an incredible review of the film at the film review site I trust most: http://www.filmfreakcentral.net. The reviewer, Walter Chaw, is the only reviewer I find myself agreeing with 90% of the time, and he's a damned good writer.

Edit: Here's the specific link, and an excerpt:

http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/hero.htm

The sexual heat between assassin Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), his lover Flying Snow (whose name, in Chinese, is a homonym for "Flying Blood" (Maggie Cheung)), and Broken Sword's calligraphy student, Moon (Zhang Ziyi), presents Hero with its central conflict. Those human attributes of sexual jealousy, pride, legacy are all placed in the crucible of something immeasurably humble. The most improbable product of the hugeness of this epic is the modesty embodied in its resolution. Zen isn't a personal thing, it's the ambition to be utterly indistinguishable from everything: a slaying of ego, a quiet absorption into the universe. And Hero is likewise about the laying down of the petty conflicts and revolutions of man in favour of a larger, holistic whole. It's a peace constructed from more than a lack of war.

The fight sequences are extraordinary in their poetry--this may be the most beautiful film ever made in the digital age--and matched by a spirituality that finds secrets and whispers in the way a man writes a word. Hero suggests interconnectedness, between all things and all actions, so that every gesture carries the weight of cathedral bells. It's chaos theory reduced to its formalist logic, and Zhang does the impossible by balancing the majesty of a martial arts extravaganza with the chamber opera of interpersonal drama. This is the best mainstream film to come out of mainland China since Hong Kong returned to the bosom of the motherland, because it finds that patiently unravelling thread of hope in the heart of the Chinese that their time beneath the yoke of oppression will end one day. And it'll end as a result of small people like themselves finding the courage to lay aside their small dreams to, at some critical moment of transcendence and metastasis, change the world.

[Enraged_Ape]

4. I didn't get communist or RW propaganda in it at all.

I really thought the message of the movie was NOT to overstep your bounds and wield power unnecessarily, and that this is an ideal worth dying for. The King abandons his plans to expand his empire after he's unified the country and instead builds an elaborate wall to defend all his people.

I seriously don't know what this other hubbub is about. The message of this film seemed pretty obvious to me.