Just got finished watching Hero, the Jet Li crazy-wire work movie.

I’m really growing to like this ‘real life anime’ style of movie, though when they get totally crazy with the wire work it just starts looking silly. Unfortunately, I watched it off of cable. It was badly dubbed and wasn’t widescreen. I might see if I can find a dvd version and watch it with sub-titles and in widescreen format. The dub was potentially awful. I’m basing that on the fact that they showed two warriors playing Go and referred to it as Chess. If they twisted that detail so badly, I assume they twisted many other details as well.

The overall flow of the movie was very similar to the classic Kurosawa movie Rashomon (the same events seen over and over from differing points of view) but of course the storyline wasn’t as good and the special effects were much better.

This one takes place in China…well, in what we now know as China when it was still broken up into several kingdoms. The King of Qin is fighting to unite the Warring States into a single empire (and eventually does so). Three assassins have been trying to kill the King, and no one can catch them. At least, until The Nameless warrior (Jet Li) does away with all three and is granted an audience with the King to receive his reward. Still, if you enjoyed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers, you’ll enjoy Hero.

Oh, and for us guys, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk was looking great as Flying Snow. Hard to believe she was almost 40 when she did this movie…