What I first thought was yet another martial arts movie (yawn) / Chinese esthetic movie (double yawn) turned out to have a theme as interesting and ambiguous as its title.
Historical background: How to end war? At what cost?
Production note quotes:
"If you look at the history of Chinese martial arts literature”, he says, “the plot always hinges on revenge… For years, this has been the only theme in Chinese martial arts films whether it’s Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. I wanted to take the genre in a new direction. In my story, the goal is to downplay violence. The characters are motivated by their desire to end the war. For real martial arts heroes, the heart is far more important than the sword." - director Zhang Yimou
"question about what kind of person we can call a hero" - actor Jet Li
Nice making of videos.
Most successful movie ever in China.
US release not until this summer...
Key words:
英雄 ying1 (Plant with phonetic. Flower, petal. Hero) xiong2 (Bird with forearm (phonetic) suggesting strength. Male (bird or other animal). Brave, heroic)
劍 jian4 (knife carried by all (phonetic). Sword)
天下 tian1 xia4 (land under heaven / rule / domination)
(definitions courtesy of MDBG Chinese dictionary and 中文.com)
Posted by Kai Carver at April 4, 2004 06:12 PMI don't really like the story flow, more Hollywood-like though... Anyway, I like Maggie Cheung's performance a lot...
Posted by: Yuwen Yang at October 10, 2004 04:17 PM