Popular reviews

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  Review by kailey ★★★★★ 13

  i have officially gotten out of the movie-watching groove. blame school, blame the transition period of my life, blame the state of the whole world right now, blame the internet. i've spent about an hour staring at my computer, trying to come up with a review. blame my slowly melting brain. forgive me if i cannot capture a tenth of the thrill i felt in my gut.

  all men become myth at some point. the film defines itself by stirring image and high feeling. it's all very chivalric and idealistic. baser emotions like lust or jealously or anger are pushed aside as unworthy. the main couple of the film is first portrayed as human and that elicits a hearty guffaw…

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  Review by Jonathan White ★★★½ 16

  Definitions:

  whooh onomatopoeia ; sound made by swinging swords, arms, legs, and all forms of sticks or poles ( with, or without metal appendages )in martial arts movies. Sometimes associated with arrows. Usually repeated at least 3 times. whooh whooh whooh

  whowh onomatopoeia; sound made by magically flying protagonists and or antagonists, often found in the Wuxia sub-genre of martial arts films, as they hurl toward their enemy, often somersaulting during the approach. Often repeated at least twice, corresponding to the number of summersaults. whowh whowh

  woah onomatopeoeia; sound made by audience when witnessing spectacular choreography and sumptuous cinematography often associated with the Wuxia sub-genre of martial arts films. Sometimes repeated twice, once for choreography, and then for cinematography. woah…

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★ 6

  *Potential spoilers for the broad strokes of the plot. If you haven't seen this yet and are looking for a quick reason to check it out, it has some of the most beautiful photography outside of a Terrence Malick picture. If you like kung-fu movies and don't mind "wire-fu" then you'll probably like Hero.*

  "A warrior's ultimate act is to lay down his sword."

  Hero is a historical wuxia, or a king-fu period piece, but the battles between warriors stand in for a more important battle happening beneath the surface of the film. The fight scenes are highly choreographed and excessively stylized (a practice commonly referred to as "wire-fu"), and this gives them a mythical quality that indicates they may…

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  Review by josh lewis ★★★★

  this is action as emotionality, our movements intuitive, the sword an extension of our anger and love. the world is often shaped by violence but we don't have to be.

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  Review by vee ★★★★★ 3

  tag yourself i'm the version of the lady assassin who killed her crush rather than communicate her feelings effectively with words

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 11

  A Rashomonian wuxia made by the person who brought us the bright, crisp melancholy of Raise the Red Lantern, this film more or less could not fail. Though one of its themes, as far as I can follow them, seem to be about sacrifice for greater ideals in unsettling nationalistic terms, the more intriguing idea of a warrior who is unwilling to kill, this paradoxical philosophy of strength through unwielded power, overwhelms the downside. More so, though, the beautiful dance of blade, elements, and environment that this film is dominated by puts everything else to shame.

  There are some who might sully this film with the qualifier that it's "cool." Those people are boorish fools. "Cool" is for pop-art and…

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  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★★ 2

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  Film #20 of the "Scavenger Hunt 2" Challenge!
  Task #26 : A film from the wuxia genre!
  letterboxd.com/naughty/list/scavenger-hunt-2/

  ___________________________________________________________________

  The fight scenes were as visually stunning as they were superbly choreographed! Literally a martial arts ballet where stylistic violence translates into pure poetry on the big screen!

  While our nameless hero recounts his tale of defeating his first assassin the rain ceased being an element of nature and became one of the films most formidable stars!

  When our hero recounts his tale of defeating the last two assassins arrows take center stage, soaring gracefully through the air till it meets its destiny within soft meaty flesh!

  Colors play a huge part in depicting mood, emotion and tone of the…

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  Review by Felipe Fritz ★★★★½

  💗💜💙💚💛💗💜💙💚💛❤
  💙                      💙
  💗     The colors.      💗
  💜                      💜 
  💙    Oh the colors.    💙
  💚                      💚
  💛   Am I in Heaven?   💛
  💗                      💗
  💜    Is this what       💜
  💙  Heaven looks like?  💙
  💚                      💚
  💜💙💚💛💗💜💙💚💛💗❤

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  Review by Sean Gilman ★★★★★

  There’s a little making-of featurette on the Miramax DVD of Hero that has some decent interviews with the cast and crew along with some breathless Hollywood narration. Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung and Donnie Yen speak impeccable English, which makes one wonder what might have been if Hollywood wasn’t so racist and dumb, while Ching Siu-tung sports some questionably-dyed hair and Christopher Doyle complains about the lack of bars in the remote deserts of Western China. After the usual rigamarole about shooting challenges and directorial perfectionism, someone asked Zhang Yimou what he thought the film was about, which he either answered honestly or deftly dodged by asserting that what he wanted people to take from the film, long after they’ve forgotten…

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  Review by reibureibu ★★★★★ 9

  Film as not just moving pictures but moving paintings, beautiful images of heroes who move in beautiful ways, of legends telling legends of each other, of colors that shift as much as the alliances, relationships, and paradigms do between the shifting stories we get ourselves lost in. Film as a moving fable, of the paradoxical nature of fighting beautifully and fighting for harmony and fighting as movement for a movement, of how ultimately film is about stories and stories have the power to move.

  A film that moves and a film that moves me; I wouldn't have it any other way.

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★½ 2

  What I love about the visual aesthetic of Zhang Yimou's Hero is that it isn't overwhelming. Obviously the arbitrary colour schemes are one of the best known features of the film, but it's the way that bodies, landscapes, and weapons don't always match that unifies the film across its bright alternating colours.

  Hero is a nationalistic film, which in a wider context makes me consider the way that we treat the ideological stances of cultures different to our own. It seems to me that an ideology we condemn in our own country we may support in another. Of course, there's nuance regarding the implementation of ideology in different cultural contexts. Hero itself actually goes beyond its story of the creation…

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  Review by <Todd> ★★★★½ 1

  "In any war there are heroes on both sides." - Opening Script,

  Jet Li, or his butt double, has an amazing ass.

  This movie is extra as fuck and I appreciate that cuz I'm hip. You kind of have to put yourself into a patriotic Chinese mindset to fully appreciate the film but it is worth it for all the surrealist fight choreography and the longing stares.

  Yes, it's worth watching for the arrow work alone.

  P.S. Watched for film club's Wuxia discussion. Thanks Theo!

  P.P.S. you know who would be great in this movie? Jean-Claude Van Damme