I finaly saw Yimou Zhang‘s Hero (Ying xiong) tonight. One of the best movies I have seen this year. My frind Erik Brown told me about it about a month ago and I trust Erik’s oppinions quite a bit. It turns out that we have a similar taste in movies. I bought it and it’s sat on my shelf since then. Just too many things going on in my life to watch all the movies I want to in the short amount of time I have in the day. So, tonight I finaly had some time to sit down and take in the movie.

The cinematography is certainly one of the best efforts I have seen in describing emotion through color and scenes. The pictures, music and dialouge complement each other so well, one is not complete without the other two. Rarely have I seen the framing and colors of a scene play such a critical role in defining meaning as in this film. A masterpeice.

Crouching TIger Hidden Dragon is close if not equal to this one in my list of movies. It certainly had a similar feeling expecialy with regard to the music, both sharing the same composer, Tan Dun for much of their music. I really like the traditional feeling Tan Dun brings to the soundtracks of these movies which in both is as much a part of the atmosphere as any other aspect of the movie.

Jet Li, Donnie Yen, and the other actors are amazing. Their acrobatics and wire-work inspire me but twist my mind as I try to understand what I have just seen. Amazing.

Of all, I like Zhang Ziyi the most. She is beautiful. I think I “fell in love” with her when I first saw CTHD. I was suprised that she is not trained in martial arts but in ballet and dramatic acting. She has performed flawlessly in both CTHD and Hero.

Hero makes dedication to priciple, dicipline and loyalty an immediate issue. It brings to the forefront the intensity of relationships, love and sacrifice and elevates selflessness. The long lost, yet ultimately important priciple missing from today’s society, that the welfare of the whole can outweigh the needs or the fullfilment of the individual is forged in the efforts of the heros of the story – there are several, not one as the title might sugest.