"Hero"

In America, the main controversy surrounding "Hero" is why it has taken so long to open. There appears to be no real reason beyond Miramax's usual perfidy when it comes to dealing with Asian films, and the meddling of mogul Harvey Weinstein who's come to be known as Harvey Scisscorhands. At less than 100 minutes, "Hero" was reportedly still too long for Weinstein. The movie is appearing under the imprimatur of Quentin Tarantino, who apparently forced Weinstein to restore the cuts he had made. Asian film fans, fed up with Miramax setting premiere dates that came and went, went online to Chinese video stores to buy import DVDs (as they did with "Shaolin Soccer" and have done with the upcoming police drama "Infernal Affairs," which Miramax is opening here on Sept. 17).

Another controversy has been brewing since the movie's 2002 release in China (where it is not only the most expensive movie ever made but the most successful) and Hong Kong. Zhang's detractors accuse him of everything from making a movie that kowtows to power to one that embraces fascistic nationalism. In the film, the King explains that he intends to conquer all of China's provinces for the purpose of uniting them, and he says that sometimes the happiness of the individual has to be sacrificed for the good of the many.

Apart from the offensiveness of charging a filmmaker whose films have been banned by the Chinese government -- and who has been prevented from traveling to collect the honors those films have garnered -- of suddenly licking the government's feet, the anti-"Hero" arguments don't take into account that the film ends not in a surge of patriotic feeling but on a pronounced mournful note of contingency and skepticism. And they ignore how the movie forces the King to live up to the ideology he so glibly spouts about sacrificing the happiness of the individual for the good of all. In our final glimpse of the King, the man has been dwarfed by the trappings of his power.

The real shame of the political quibbling that has taken part in some quarters over "Hero" is that those arguments have nothing to do with how enjoyable the film is. Above everything, it's a great adventure tale with both scenes of individual combat and battle scenes whose grandeur and geometric formations of troops recall Akira Kurosawa and the Stanley Kubrick of "Spartacus." Zhang renders the martial-arts scenes lyrical without blunting their excitement. When Nameless and Broken Sword face off on a secluded lake, the camera goes underwater so we're looking up at the ripples their feet make as they gently disturb the surface. The finale of a showdown between Flying Snow and Moon is just as breathtaking, with a landscape of golden leaves turning a vivid red before our eyes.

Each section of the film is shot primarily in one shade -- red, blue, green, white. "Hero" suggests that -- after his work on "The Quiet American," on the current "Last Life in the Universe" and with Wong Kar-wai -- Christopher Doyle may be the greatest cinematographer now working. The movie is utterly gorgeous to look at but Doyle's work is never merely "pictorial." It always has the dramatic impetus of the scene in mind. He is a master of lighting, shading, hues and precise yet subtle camera movement and is one of the least fussy masters imaginable. And as dazzling as the landscapes are, the close-ups are just as beautiful. At times, "Hero" might be an essay in the art of the close-up. Doyle and Zhang bring us so close to the actors that we become privy to the tiniest gradations of mood.

During the last two decades, Asia has produced more than its share of genuine movie stars. For fans of Asian movies, the quartet of stars in "Hero" are a dream combination. For American audiences who haven't encountered them before, seeing them could be a revelation.

Li has the hardest role, requiring a stoicism and carrying the ambiguity of the movie's title on his shoulders. Leung (as he does in "Infernal Affairs") has the sort of understated masculine presence that we associate with the likes of George Clooney. Ziyi, as she's shown before, manages to combine moments of reticence with sudden firecracker eruptions. And Cheung is simply extraordinary. If this performance had been given in a silent movie, it would be legendary by now. For most of her screen time in "Hero," there's a profound stillness to her. She lounges with the indolence of a cat and her eyes are capable of transmitting hauteur, disdain, wounded eroticism and unutterable sadness. In "Hero" Cheung exudes a poetry and mystery that's Garboesque.

"Hero" took so long to be released here that Zhang's next film, "House of Flying Daggers," another martial-arts picture starring Ziyi, is finished and will be out here at Christmas time. Zhang's career is turning out to be a particularly interesting and varied one. After the subdued (too subdued for me) style of his early films, the gangster pastiche "Shanghai Triad" showed a fondness for melodrama that hadn't been evident. And two films that followed, "Not One Less" and "The Road Home," were the exact opposite -- exquisite pieces of humanist filmmaking in which Zhang removed all the barriers between us and the characters. "Hero" is yet another twist, the sort of crowd-pleaser no one seems to make anymore, which is to say one that doesn't dumb itself down in search of a wide audience. He hasn't just made a great, romantic adventure tale -- he's made a rare film that delivers gravitas with grace.

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