Hero 2002

      Nameless is a defense officer.  He is summoned by the King of Qin because of his success in terminating three warriors.  They are the most notorious assassins in the land.  By this action, he has ensured the safety of the king.  Ancient China and the Qin Empire are out to conquer the six kingdoms.  Because of this effort, their king is a target for assassination.

     This film is a martial arts extravaganza with the fighting styles and lives of the fighters shown following the Chinese tradition.  There is more than just fighting to martial arts because it translates action and violence into poetry, ballet and philosophy.  The styles and lives of the fighters within Chinese tradition are like a mystery. They are told from more than one point of view.  5 1/2* (I really liked this movie)  

  
120 min, Action directed and written by Yimou Zhang and written by Feng Li, Yimou Zhang, Ben Lang with Jet Li, Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, Maggie Cheung, Ziyi Zhang, Daoming Chen, Donnie Yen, Zhongyuan Liu, Tianyoung Zheng, Yan Qin, Chang Xiao Yang, Yakun Zhang.

Note:  Imdb 7.9* out of 10* with 172,968 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 95% with 208 critics 87% with 249,429 audience scores, Metacritic 85 out of 100 with 42 critic reviews 9 out of 10 with 473 user scores, Roger Ebert 3 1/2*, The Guardian 4* out of 5* Steve Rose, Amazon 4.6 out of 5 with 1438 reviews.

Special Note:  All of the soldiers in the Qin army sequence as well as the palace sequences were acted by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldiers.  Only the stunts are done by actors.  It is estimated that 18,000 soldiers were used as extras in this film.  The lake scenes took almost three weeks to film because director Imo Zhang insisted that the lake’s surface be perfectly still and only mirror-like.  The Qin Empire preferred the color black, even for horses.  Some of the horses needed to be temporarily colored black for the cavalry scenes.

Mistakes:  Nameless shows Sky’s broken spear to Broken Sword and Snow.  Nameless had asked them to meet at midnight, when he leaves it is clearly the middle of the day?  When Moon gives Nameless the sword as he is in the horse drawn cart, she approaches from the right but later she is seen to the left of the cart.