Word: heros
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...Chinese theater seats. Not only is he determined to work within the mainland's still conservative system, but he views the task of making movies that satisfy both censors and his own artistic standards as a healthy exercise?one that has forced him to become a better filmmaker. With Hero, he has risen to that challenge...
...Review: Zhang Yimou's Hero...
...Hero, a stirringly patriotic hymn to China's founding myth, is similarly unprovocative, giving Chinese audiences a past they can be proud of without making them think much. Zhang concedes that the movie lacks the intellectual and emotional heft of his earlier works: "Hero is a genre piece. Its message is very simple, but it breaks ground visually. The audience will remember the aesthetics more than the story. Its message is a message of peace. But there's nothing particularly exciting about that message unless it's taken in the context of the genre, where it's something...
...Hero was made in this spirit of unashamed compromise. But it is, at least, a spectacular compromise?proof once again that Zhang is China's leading cinematic visionary, even when he's been reduced to just one pinky...
Zhang Yimou sounds defensive when he speaks of Hero as "a genre piece." The implication is: just a genre piece, a diversion, a long sword fight played by grownups. Perhaps the director is thinking of his last purely frivolous work, the 1989 Codename Cougar, a goofy skyjack thriller that outfitted his severe star and muse at the time Gong Li in a tight stewardess uniform. If so, Zhang is underestimating both the power of the movie-epic form and his ability to inhabit and revive...