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New York Times review of Hero Jan 1, 2003

 
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:59 pm    Post subject: New York Times review of Hero Jan 1, 2003

January 2, 2003
Film on Ruthless Dynasty Delights China's Leaders
By JOSEPH KAHN

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/arts/02ARTS.html?ex=1077944400&en=66aa36bbd34d3967&ei=5070

SHANGHAI, Jan. 1 — Qin Shihuang's fearsome exercise of power 2,200 years ago has been compared to the actions of Napoleon and Stalin, and his bloody legacy remains a raw wound in today's China.

The Qin emperor was a military adventurer who unified the country for the first time by subsuming six warring states and began to build the Great Wall. Ruthless, he imposed absolute order by executing those suspected of disloyalty. Modern artists approach the subject with caution, in part because Mao Zedong saw the founding emperor as an inspiration and the Communist Party still views the ancient leader as a pointed allegory.

So when Zhang Yimou, China's best-known and arguably most talented director, chose the Qin court as the setting for his big-budget martial arts epic "Hero," expectations were high. The director of "Raise the Red Lantern" and "To Live," Mr. Zhang has often explored the emotional whiplash inflicted on common people by China's tumultuous history. He has also infuriated the Beijing government and found himself blacklisted, while delighting many critics.

But "Hero," despite its complicated subject, has delighted Beijing's mandarins, who are submitting it as China's nominee for best foreign film at the Academy Awards. And it has infuriated some Chinese critics, who have panned Mr. Zhang's plot for promoting a philosophy of servitude.

"'Hero' does not have the courage to present the massacres Qin Shihuang ordered in the name of peace under heaven," said Tou Jiangming, writing in The Sat-China Weekly. "The history so often questioned by modern thinkers is ignored by Zhang Yimou."

Or as a critic using the pen name Bu Tong put it in The Beijing Youth Daily: "Zhang Yimou's movie has a deep servility inside. He tried to understand what the world looks like from the ruler's standpoint."

This is a little like Fellini suddenly promoting Victorian values. Most of Mr. Zhang's earthy films view the world through the powerless, people stuck in anonymous villages who rely only on inner dignity and intense passions to guide them through a world that takes them for granted.

"Hero" is something new. Mr. Zhang, 51, set out to prove that he could make a Hollywood-style blockbuster that appealed to both Chinese and foreign audiences, while retaining his artistic touch. He may have succeeded.

But he did something else new as well, whether because he needed government support to produce a film of unprecedented cost and scale for China or because he wanted the police to do more to help him fight rampant piracy: he made a movie that those in China's propaganda apparatus are thrilled to promote. After its premiere in mid-December in the Great Hall of the People, the deputy director of the state film bureau, Zhang Pimu (who is no relation to the director), called it "artistic, entertaining and thoughtful."

The $31 million production has an all-star cast of Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi. It has aerial martial arts choreography like that in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," the runaway success directed by Ang Lee. Miramax backed "Hero" and will release it in the United States early in 2003.

Like Mr. Zhang's early films, "Hero" is lyrical. From the lakes of Jiuzhaigou to the forests of Inner Mongolia, Mr. Zhang mixes spectacular natural scenery with his own cinematic vision, producing a colorful slide show of fine art.

The moment of truth in the story, written by Mr. Zhang and two others, comes when Jet Li, playing a nameless assassin, makes a gravity-defying assault on the king of Qin. (The king has not finished subsuming all rival states and creating the Qin empire.) The assassin decides, with a split second to spare, that his highest calling is to abandon his personal quest and let the king unify China. The written Chinese characters "Tian Xia," all under heaven, are the movie's coda.

The king of Qin appears as a misunderstood leader who dispatches his black-armored cavalry to slaughter his neighbors but suffers quiet agony at the pain he must inflict for the common good.

Mr. Zhang's king even sheds a tear for his converted assassin when, with a flick of his wrist, the king orders his execution.

The historical Emperor Qin left little evidence of his compassion. He replaced feudalism with a merciless monarchy. He killed Confucian scholars and burned their books.

The emperor's ruthlessness left him few admirers until Mao. "Please don't slander Emperor Qin Shihuang, sir," Mao wrote in a 1973 poem. The Communist leader praised the emperor for suppressing Confucian orthodoxy, which Mao despised for its intricate morals.

Today, Qin's rule is not a forbidden subject. But it remains sensitive, particularly after Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou's peer, covered the same historical ground as "Hero" in his 1998 film, "The Emperor and the Assassin."
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