By Chi Tung
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? Zhang Yimou wants us to think it's his Hero. Too bad there's no Excalibur to go with all that shining armor...
So Zhang Yimou wants us to think we can all be heroes, huh? Fine. If that's his explanation for extoling (among other things) despotism, unilateral militancy and misguided patriotic fervor, then so be it. After all, politics be damned; this is art and compelling art needn't be held accountable for its auteur's flimsy intent, right? Perhaps the rest of us are all-too weary of Michael Moore and M. Night Shymalayan's latest spook/Bush-administration-spoof and would just like to snuggle up with some old-fashioned, Chinese aerodynamics. And maybe a romantic subplot, since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had one of those too and we all know how that turns heads when the Academy comes-a-calling. As it turns out though, Hero's problems extend beyond mere hide-and-go-seek-jingoism. No, what's truly troubling is that after a string of snot-on-the-sleeve personal dramas screaming sentiment over substance, Zhang has decided he can cloak his steadily eroding filmmaking skills in posh surroundings and sterile, blank-slate characters. The result is that as a motion picture, Hero possesses a look and luster few could ever hope to match. But when treated as a full-bodied creative entity, it sputters, spewing out trite artifice while going belly-up on heady craftsmanship.
For starters, Zhang continually victimizes our common sense by languishing in flashbacks and fragmented storylines. The intended effect (I think) is to cast a pall of smoke over truth and reality, leaving it up to the viewer to decide which scenario is of greater heft. Once he has hurtled us into his time-altering dimensions however, Zhang sees the opportunity to bludgeon us with a universal declaration of collective hope, establishment-know-how and imperial glory, as if the wishes of the poor, meddlesome common folk were really unanimous with their ruler's "short-term cruelty equals long-term prosperity" magnanimity all along. And rather than give us ample time to process each character's withering mental state and mass of contradictions--putting him in the unique position to make a powerful indictment of heroic archetypes--he allows the King of Qin's narrative prerogative to lord over their perspectives. Notions of honor and individual self-sacrifice, along with character-embellishment, serve as flowers in the window for some mysteriously achieved conglomerate identity.
To make matters worse, Zhang tantalizes us throughout the film with esoteric reminders of some earth-shattering revelation (psst...the King knows something that the rest of you don't) but the denouement is so hastily and forcibly reconciled that any self-respecting cynic immediately wonders: Could that really be it? Alas that it is, for Zhang's thematic incomprehensibility and circular logic are laid bare for all to see.
Of course, a messy storyline can still be salvaged by sterling writing and believable characters. Sadly, that's not the case here, as a talented cast is wasted by limp existential banter and a pervading air of stale stoicism. Leung and Cheung, as the bohemian swordsmen Broken Sword and Flying Snow, are still ravishing to look at, and do their best to charge their roles with deeper emotional undercurrents, but the characters are plagued by such woeful inconsistencies and feeble motivations, we feel cheated out of our visceral bang-for-the-buck. Jet Li's Nameless sleepwalks his way through a sea of arrows, multiple showdowns and a prescient king (who's actually played with just the right amount of snarl and solemnity by Cheng Dao Ming) while Zhang Ziyi's loyal-to-a-fault chambermaid is so underused, you would hardly register her presence if not for the fact that she is, well, Zhang Ziyi.
On the same token, Zhang Yimou's early penchant for plumbing the depths of human turmoil and ratcheting up audience indignance are nowhere to be found; everyone looks and talks as if they're still recovering from post-kung-fu-boot-camp-trauma. Maybe the film should've taken a few cues from its superior predecessor Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a martial-arts pic without hidden pretenses or weighty affects. Instead, Hero claims not a touch of zen, but proselytized passivity. And there lies the rub: Zhang professes a love for art that speaks to the fragility of the manmade condition, even though he sweeps clarity, substance and sincerity underneath a gaudy, silken, newly government-minted rug. We can all be heroes, but only if we play by his rules.
Published: Friday, September 3, 2004
