| Review:
|
Zhang Yimou directs Hero. The film stars Jet Li, Tony
Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Daoming,
and Donnie Yen ***
Hero is a story told in flashbacks about a single man
(Li) and how he, on his own, managed to defeat 3 assassins
who were out to murder the most powerful lord in China,
prior to the country being unified. ***
Hero is an excellent, well-made martial arts film. While
it certainly isn't the sort of thing that every person is
going to enjoy, there is no denying the amount of work that
went into making the film, as well as the amount of talent
that was on board. ***
Hero is a winner on so many levels because of the talent
of its production crew and actors. Jet Li is one of the
greatest martial arts actors in the world today, and this
film is a prime example of him doing what he does best.
The cinematography is simply gorgeous, painting an amazing
picture of China in the distant past. The movie is well-paced
throughout, and this reviewer didn't come across a single
“boring moment” in the mix. While I wouldn't put Hero in
the top tier of martial arts movies I have ever seen, there
is no denying that the film is excellent and well worth
checking out. ---
Image And Sound:
While the transfer here tends to be hit-and-miss, it's
light years ahead of the other martial arts films that Buena
Vista released on September 15, 2009 to the Blu-Ray format.
The image is brighter and sharper, cleaner, and definitely
gets an upgrade in the detail department. There are occasional
issues here and there, the major one being the decision
to use noise reduction (when will studios learn?) ***
Disappointingly though, like those other martial arts
films Hero was released concurrently with, Buena Vista opted
to only give the English dub a lossless audio track, and
stick the original language version with standard, less-than-stellar
audio. Another example of “when will the studios learn?”
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| Special
Features: |
Again, Buena Vista does better here than on the other
releases accompanying Hero, but still leaves a lot to be
desired. All we get is a handful of generic featurettes
(in standard definition no less) that total less than an
hour. Fans will want to watch these, but again, will be
left wanting more as well.
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Final Words:
|
Hero is a fine martial arts
film, and it's good to see that it gets better treatment than
the other Ultimate Force of Four films do. Still, with a transfer
that uses noise reduction and lossy audio on the native language
track, as well as a fairly limited amount of bonus material,
you may want to hold off for a more definitive release. That
said, though, if you simply can't wait until something better
comes along, this release of Hero is good enough to merit
at least a moderate recommendation. |
