I think Zhang Yimou is at all times an excellent cinematographer and often a very good director, but the director stayed at home when making Hero. Oh, the images are stunning, but also totally artificial. They serve no other purpose than to illustrate how brilliantly he can use colour and composition. There is no content. Everything in this film has been done before: the subject (The emperor and the assassin, by Chen Kaige), the plot (starting with Rashomon, evidently), the use of colours (un homme et une femme, for instance), music as counterpoint to a duel (Sergio Leone, most notably in Once upon a time in the West) and of course the idea to make a Chinese Martial Arts film accessible to western audiences (move over, CTHD, or at least, that was the idea). Whereas CTHD had likeable characters whom you could relate to, an interesting plot, emotional development, a very charming performance by Zhang Zi Yi and on top of that beautiful landscapes superbly photographed and rousing fights (especially the one between Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Zi Yi in the courtyard), Hero only has the stunning images. It's like a coffeetable book. Two-dimensional. Zhang Yimou gets out his whole box of tricks, but that's what we see, tricks. We don't get emotionally involved. Always you can see the artifice behind it all, and this idea of: look at me, see what a genius I am. Beauty that's that pretentious leaves a bad aftertaste.
