This is by far the best movie review for this movie. I am really impressed that a westerner would understand our Chinese culture and social ideas so well.
Really awesome review with a lot of analysis of details in this movie! As a Chinese, I am really impressed by the depth and accuracy of your review. You did a good job! Here are some of my personal interpretations. About the colors in this movie, you did an excellent job of analyzing them. I only have some slightly different ideas. For the color of blue, I would define it as the "Nobleness". In this scene, which is told by the King, all of the assassins showed their noble virtue. They were calm, altruistic and persistent. Also for the color of black at the beginning of this movie, the reason that the director chose this color as the main color of King's Palace and the army is that in the Qin Dynasty, which is a dynasty in the Chinese history established by the Shihuang (the prototype of the character "King"), the emperor admired the color black. Finally, here's an interesting fact to help you understand the spirit of this movie. There's a Chinese word “戈” which stands for the meaning of a kind of weapon (like a spear). This word is also a representative of the idea of "weapon", "conflict" and "war". There's another Chinese word “止” which means "stop". When you put these two words together and merge them with each other, you will get a new word “武” (you can see it from the shapes of these three characters). However, the word “武” stands for the meaning of "force" and "power". So you will see how our Chinese comprehend the idea of "force". We believe that force should be used to stop the wars and settle the conflicts. We should not use the force to bully and kill others. On the contrary, we believe the force should be used to protect peace and harmony. This is the highest level of the spirit of both Kungfu and Chinese traditional values. And that's the reason why the Nameless warrior didn't kill the King.
Man, help me out here. I absolutely love this movie, but the ending almost ruins it for me. I watched it yesterday after a decade and than I went searching for reviews to clear my mind about the ending. The best one I got - the one I most agree with - is the Stephen Hunter: "So the movie, in the end, endorses his right of conquest and unification on the grounds that fewer people will die than if the six nations continued to war against one another. To make an omelet, one must break some eggs, though nobody ever pays too much attention to the poor eggs. That's the justification of all tyrants -- tyrants in nations and tyrants in offices: Do it my way so there's less conflict. Obey me and it'll be better. Why do all this fighting against me; peace through conquest. That was the king of Qin's reasoning and it was all the other big bad ones as well: Hitler and Stalin and most particularly that latter-day king of Qin named Mao, another great unifier who stopped the fighting and killed only between 38 million and 67 million in the process." I truly understand the concept you said about force being used to defend, to keep the peace and to preserve the culture. That's why I think the ending is a little propaganda. How the hell a king who wants to unify every culture in ONE language, destroying people's homes, cultures and families is portrayed like a idealized, sentimental leader?? The nameless represented exactly the nameless who dies in the hand of tyrant, so the nameless was using his sword exactly to prove the point that harmony and peace is not the same thing as submisison to a unified governement. I really - REALLY - want to enjoy every bit of the movie, but the ending for me is a confusion of peace with silence. The propaganda is of peace, but the reality - in CCP's Chine is silence. (And the director, who got in trouble with them in his early years, dosent seem to care much more since he made the Party's birthday some years ago. It seems very differente than what Kurosawa, to say an example, did rennouncing propaganda movies after his first years.
@@BardockFLIT This is just my two cents on the movie, as someone who was born and raised in China. I don't think every movie has to be political or have something to say about modern society's issues, and in fact I don't think this movie is trying to do that at all. Your interpretation is tinted by your view of Chinese politics but I don't see this as having anything to do with it. When we look at this story, it's set in the warring states period, before China became China. Over 2000 years ago. I will stress that it's "Warring" States, not... peaceful coexistence states period. Put in the position of the sovereign of a nation state, what would you have done? Not fight back? It's a war, and in those days you either win or you die. The ruler of Qin made the simple choice to end the war by winning, his only choice. There has been generations of slaughter, countless dead, vengeance begets vengeance. Given the chance of peace for the next generation to come, what would you have him do instead? On top of that, what do you think would have happened had Nameless killed the king, a happy ending? No. Qin will fall without leadership, many will die, fields will burn and countless will starve when they are left with nothing. It's purely a question of practicality. I think it's a great piece of historical fiction, a retelling of past events. I can't find any deliberate political message in the movie, it's a story about people who try their damnedest to follow their own ideals. I think that's what makes a hero. There's no need to view it in a political light, and I think doing so is a disservice to the brilliant work that went into making this masterpiece.
@@PresentHeroes I really appreciate your time and your answer. O am not the type who sees politcs in everything, specially in art. And I understand the position the ruler of Qin is. My point isnt the absolute similarity of the story and China today, but It is hard for me to not see peace = silence when the Hero gives up and appeal tô the kindness of the leader. Its hard tô buy. And in one thing I disagree: to follow your own ideals does not make you a hero. It can make you a hero, depending on your ideals, but who believes in that in cyinical society? To follow your ideals not rarely makes tou a fool, If not a complete crazy. But i really appreciate your answer, my friend. Thank you
@@BardockFLIT No problem! I like talking about these things especially since I like historical fiction in general. I get that you see it in a political light, I personally don't. Especially because in reality the king did survive to unite China, becoming the first emperor. The Hero didn't give up, it's actually the opposite. He followed through with his ideals that were changed by Broken Sword. "In order to have unity and peace, you must not kill the king". But he knew that having come this far and having his original plan be discovered, he was going to die if he doesn't kill the king. So why doesn't he? Because if he does, it would be for a personal vendetta without honor. It would have horrible consequences too, with the king of Qin dead the war would continue for decades to come, Qin would be invaded without leadership and murder, pillage and rape will come with it. So in the end, the harder but more honorable choice is to give his own life up, ensuring the King survives to bring peace through conquest which is the only option for peace in that situation. He is a Hero, for his self sacrifice for the greater good, and for following his ideals through to the end. If you couldn't tell already this movie tugs on my emotions but I've tried to remain unbiased...
Thank you for your review! Your interpretation is inspiring! I am a Chinese, and I was 10 years old when this movie release. (Apparently, I didn't get it when I was 10). One thing I found interesting is that even though nameless give up his assassination at the end. He still stabs king of Qin by the handle of his sword. By doing this action nameless proved that he could kill the king. He gives up just because he believes the king can stop the chaos, bring harmonious to people( which is the primary purpose of Qing King). As we saw at the beginning of this movie, Qin King is very arrogance and losing his purpose. Nameless action is a huge wake-up call to the King. If the king lost his purpose, then thousands and hundreds of "nameless" could kill him. Nameless remind is successful because at the end the King recalls his purpose and his arrogance disappear.
I'm glad you liked it! Yes, I agree with your breakdown of why Nameless goes through with the motion but doesn't land the kill. Nameless enters the chamber already transformed by Broken Sword's message, so his entire goal is to spread that message to the Emperor. Not only is his action meaningful, but the camera shot/fake out is pretty great too :)
most foreigners don't understand the "天下（under sky）"meaning, ancient china has a old phase"普天之下莫非王土"（all the world under the sky，is the emperor's land）.so in chinese mind,the world(or the broundrary) is under the sky.天下 is the world
Incredible review. One of my all time favorites. I always felt like Broken Sword was the true hero of this film because he understood the bigger picture and dedicated the rest of his life to sharing his ideals.
Well reviewed! And the colors tells us now what they are ment for. This is not a martial-art film alone but has a deeper meaning. According to Jet Li when he read the script he got teary eyed or cried. He turned down Choruching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but memorable and deep movie came and what Jet Li had been longing for.
A bit late, but I saw green as "Wisdom". It displays when Brokensword comes up with the realization of "Unity Under The Heavens".... Edit: And "Growth" was a great reflection of that color too, which you stated.
This movie makes me cry every time I see it (alone 😂). Everything comes together so well: action, drama, romance, culture, artistry. It is simply a masterpiece of film!
One big mistake in the post story narration is: the Emporer did not start to build the walls. The walls were already built by the different warring states to fence off the nomads. The Emporer did connect all the old walls and make them one.
Each person may have a different definition of a hero. But it is certain that when one has the courage to give up his life, he must be brave at that moment. Perhaps people prefer to use the terms "negative" and "weak" to describe this self-liberation behavior. But in fact this "negative" is also relative. The relationship between the borken sword and the Flying Snow is actually nothing more than a sad couple ending their love in the saddest way. If they did not have any intersection with King Qin. Their love will appear boring and sad. You must know that lyrical couples are too many in this world. Not all people have the opportunity to assassinate the king or have the opportunity to complete a great career. Nameless is exactly the same. If he is deliberately trying to kill his hateful neighbours, then he will be considered crazy and murderous. We must be very aware of a problem. King Qin created these "heroes." Just as history is written by winners. When "negative behavior" is attached to this powerful objective reality. It may be defined as "great dedication." There are no heroes in this world, only the winners have fulfilled them. This is actually only the mercy of the strong. How cruel is reason! It is only the mercy of the strong man that the audience is intoxicated. The lovely Qin Wang gave nameless such an opportunity and gave an assassin a chance to come in close contact with him. And also gave the enemy the opportunity to forgive him! If we are concerned about the theme of the hero again. If this movie can only have one hero, I think it must be King of Qin. When many years later I reviewed this movie. It still gives me a strong shock. This shock has nothing to do with the meaning of the hero and the shadow behind it. It is about a great sadness.
*Great* insights. Thinking of Broken Sword and Flying Snow's romance/relationship without their shared hatred of the King is very fascinating to think about. And yes, the discussion of what makes a true hero and the moral ambiguity of heroes who fight for their ambitions and dreams is far more complex than this review had time to even get into.
This is my favorite movie of all time! I have 2 physical copies, and a digital copy (gonna buy the director’s cut sometime next week) One way I like to interpret the title “Hero” as it relates to the main cast I personally feel like Nameless was the protagonist, but Broken Sword was the HERO! Without him changing Nameless’ mind, (the Our Land speech) he would’ve killed the Emperor and MORE chaos would’ve spread throughout the land. I’m probably wrong about this interpretation, but it’s interesting to think about.
If group culture is truly the emphasis of the story, then the writer of the movie pick a bad example. That's because the Qin dynasty last only 18 years and war returns right afterwards. This makes nameless' choice to not kill the king meaningless.
@@UrAvgGamer sure Qin dynasty has ots contribution , but at what cost. A unified regime comes at a cost, in short term, the lives and rights of the people. In the long run though, just look at how China fair against European when colonists reach China. A unified regime has no competitors, like a monopoly.
@@otsa120 Well Qin did major reforms and it stuck with all the dynasties that followed. After it fell, what immediately followed was a short war and 400 years of relative peace from the unified Han Dynasty, then it split a few times again(war) and had multiple successful unified dynasties with golden ages (Tang, Song, Ming, Qing). I don't think the movie is trying to say group culture is the best, but it is just presenting the point of view of China where when they are unified, prosperity and peace are often ushered. I don't agree with the example that the century of humiliation was caused by their group culture(that regime was not popular in China to begin with), and it is also not the first time that China fell from outside powers(Mongols, Manchus).
@@UrAvgGamer I guess you are not grasping what I mean by the cost of a unified regime. What is the cost of maintaining a unified regime? Peace does not necessary lead to prosperity. Before I further elaborate, what's your view on Chinese methods to maintain such long stretches of peace? My example of comparing European colonist against China is not focusing on group culture itself or external threat of the Chinese civilization. It is to show competing regimes does not means destructions, and unified regime with long period of peace can be worse off. 1) European countries are not unified since the Roman times. Nations wage wars against each other frequently. 2) China in comparison have long stretches of peace and is unified. Yet it turns out Europe develops faster and became more prosper. The question then becomes, how does this happened. My conclusion is that "peace does not necessary lead to prosperity" and there is a cost for maintaining this so called "peace". What is yours?
Black was the favorite color of the Qin emperor. In traditional beliefs Zhou has the “national color” red meaning fire. Qin with their black color or water defeated Zhou. Water defeated fire. A philosophy Qin propagandized in heavily using black
This video is incredible as summarising EVERYTHING from this incredible movie. I have my IB comparative study and chose to compare this film and Kill Bill Volume 1 and it has helped me so much! I can't thank you enough!
Chinese netizens love to compare Hero to Crouching Tiger and to shit on this film while singing praises about Tiger. While I agree that Crouching Tiger has interesting character development and overall good cinematography, it seems to me that Ang Lee hadn’t quite mastered the level of cinematic/visual language that Zhang Yimou has come to be recognized for. Like you said here, Hero is steeped in color symbolisms and exemplifies the perfect marriage between color and movement. I also love how the film pays homage to the use of layered perceptions in Roshmon without coming across as ripping off that Japanese masterpiece. This also makes for a more intriguing structure than Crouching Tiger’s more linear/straightforward narrative.
Incredible review mate. Loved every second. My interpretation for white was purity. No lies, just the truth and the basest of emotions, like love, and devotion.
Thanks for the review. I watched this one back in theaters in 2004 and have watched it over the years. I am not sure what the trilogy is called, but I always considered this the start of Zhang Yimou's "History of China" trilogy. Hero was easily the best of the 3 movies (Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower). Shockingly, the quality of the writing went down even as the subsequent films had higher budgets and amazing sets. I really only considered the primary colors as important (red, blue, whitish and the added green). I mostly agree with your interpretation of the colors, but I would say that green is mystery in this one. The Emperor cuts down all the green in the throne room, thus, leaving it bare and lacking of mystery. When Broken Sword and Flying Snow meet, again, green. Mystery. This one is still a favorite for me (among others).
Great review, the first time I saw it as a kid I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. I was disappointed that Nameless died at the end by the arrows, I thought that shot was amazing when I saw the trailers. But watching it again later on and then a few months back, I absolutely love this film and the message.
When the first emperor began conquering different factions of China he was seen as a power hungry mongrel. He even killed his own family to prove how ruthless he is. Makavelli (spell check) expressed that weakness cannot be shown and ultimately principle was the point to prove, no matter how wrong it felt. Through generations, China was at war with each other until a King (Emperor) became powerful enough to unite under one flag and stop the endless wars between the divided parts. It’s pretty simple, although the King started as a a man who sought power, ultimately the end goal was to unite under one flag as a means to an end. Nameless and Broken Sword put their own vengeance aside and sought for peace amongst their country. If Nameless had killed the King it would just send everyone back into division and turmoil and everyone who had died had been in vain. This film was just a dramatized history lesson but still holds true in that time.
One of my favorite movies... EVER, so much story, colour use and "whatever you said", but I didnt analyze the movie at all, I just enjoyed it. This movie shows what holywood are not able to create anymore. Action, story, plots, visuals and on and on. - holywood just have action, one liners and more action. Maybe this has to do with the audience, maybe Holywood movies has been so deevolved over the years due to the stupid audience who will buy a ticket for any movie that contains explotions. ( just think about the new StarWars movies, complete flop.. ) Also, the "house of flying daggers" are a great movie, but I still put Hero on top.
Hollywood seem to be creating movies solely for the box office (as it is usually used to measure success) and seem to overdose of special effects to attract crowds to movie theatres so audiences do not watch it at home.
Um. I think there’s a historical aspect here. The “our land”/“under heaven” as a winning argument smacks a lot of the sinicizatiom policies pursued by the modern Chinese state. Thus the assassins must give up on their dreams of revenge against Qin as despite whatever wrongs have been done to them, only being subsumed into a single Chinese state will bring an end to the warring states period, and thus peace. And if that reading hikes, what is haooening to the Uyghurs makes this film a lot harder to like.
Gratz, bro. You get it. Thus you enjoy it. People should try that more. Slight differences in colors interpretation but not significant. If I may add. The hole in the wall where Nameless stood taking shots. That negative space is for all the “nameless heroes” who choose to do the right thing throughout history without ever being recognized. Anywho, here’s a like and sub. Best wishes.
Well that was extremely enlightening. I viewed the colours themes in particular a whole different way but i would say your explaination makes much more sense than mine. I definitely viewed it through western eyes but this review makes much more sense. All that aside, this film is truly one of the most beautiful & visually stunning films of all time. Visually it is my favourite ever & i am so thankful that i watched it in all it’s glory at the theatre...three times! Great review mike, many thanks.
Not sure if you will see this since its been long time, but Black was the color of Qin. Qin Shi Huang forbade colors and thats why even the emperor's robe, for the Qin dynasty and Han dynasty following it was Black Color. For black he said was the color of mindlessness. Where as different colors influence human emotion, Black color does not. As he demands his court to follow the Law of the Land without emotion. This is also the reason why He was forced to kill Nameless, as his court reminds him in Unison at the end "To follow your law, You must Kill!", "For the people to follow your law, You must Kill!". Thats why he kills Nameless even though he did not want to... and even though it was his law, he had to follow thru in order to be the respected Authority. And lastly, we see that Broken Sword was right abt the King because only a King with such Integerity was able to Unite the Land.
EXCELLENT juxtaposition of eastern and western ideals. And together they form ☯️ balance. The individual is important. The collective is important. Yet one cannot subsume the other in whole. They must co-exist together. Tyranny of the masses, unbridled anarchical individualism… both are wrong. Integrity, accountability, the whole/bigger picture, ego/pride, passion, nature, ideals, truth, duality (black/white)…
Here is what I interpret the colors: Black = The element of water, symbolizing the destruction. Blue = The element of wood, symbolizing immortality and advancement. Red= The element of fire, symbolizing luck, joy, and happiness. including passion and sex. Yellow = the element of earth, symbolizing power, royalty, and prosperity. White = the element of metal, symbolizing death, purity and innocence. Green = jade color, symbolizing prosperity, success, and good luck. Is this make sense?
I saw this comment of yours a few weeks ago at a time when I was feeling discouraged and deflated. It gave me the boost that I needed to create my next big project, in record time, that I'll be posting soon. So I wanted to be sure to thank you for your kind words. I just subbed to you with my regular-person account.
Did you notice that the acrobatic superhuman feats only take place during the non-white segments, adding the to idea that they are exaggerated retelling of stories/myths?
What the movie didn't tell us is that the Qin dynasty is destroyed shortly after it unified China and civil war resumed. History remembers the Qin dynasty as a ruthless regime, and was made as an example that ruthless rule cannot last long. Therefore, picking the story to base around the Qin emperor is a very poor choice. Broken Sword believes that the hatred of Flying Snow was nothing when comparing to the pain of everyone. Yet, he forgot that there are numerous victims of the Qin war machines and ruthless rules, their anger and hatred is the strongest de-stabilising force of the land. Therefore, Nameless' sacrifice is pointless in the grand scheme of things.
Hero is an important movie for the Chinese movie industry. While many elements in the movie are handle really well, such as using color as underlying schemes of the story, story telling from different accounts, but as a whole it is quite flawed and quite underwhelming for the Chinese audiences. While Sky and Moon are somewhat essential characters to advance certain story beats, they are completely restricted to just that---devices. This perhaps is quite hard to avoid since the core of the presentation is "the message". All characters unsubtly served this one simple purpose: to deliver the message. The other huge problem with this picture is Broken Swords' realization of the idea of "Our land" or "Under heaven". His change of mind is almost shoved down to audiences' throat without even any attempt of explaining. It's just so raw and rough. Another similar but even worse instance is how the King, at the final moment of his life, suddenly saw into Broken swords ideal. He immediately put that into his own words as if talking directly to the audience in case we missed the plot. The picture is half success half failure in my opinion and that's probably why it received very mixed reviews at that time. While it is quite "clever" in telling a overall story, it achieved so at the cost of plausible twist and natural characters.
Dude, Thanks, that was very interesting. I believe I read that Doyle the Light director just choose colors preaty ramdomnly so i guess you are not very accurrate, but... your interpretation was very very interesting. thank you very much!
Yeah, I read that too while I was researching the film..... that's why I stuck in the disclaimer about it being my own interpretation. I believe the director said the colors were chosen primarily to organize the flashbacks/viewpoints. But that's no fun.
I remember watching this movie when i was young and i couldn't understand anything, firstly because it was in the Chinese language (Language barrier), secondly shifting from one scene to another and yet in the previous one so and so died or was injured confused me more and more and lastly the execution of Nameless wasn't my favorite part as i a big fan of Jet Li's character in movies and i obviously couldn't enjoy seeing him being killed in a movie. Thank you for finally breaking it down
The way I've been explaining this movie to people: So Jet Li infiltrates this King's palace. He's going to kill him, but before he does that, The King asks how did he pull off such a great feat to get in his presence. So Jet Lit begins to tell the story. Alright, so we was wearing red... The King says I don't believe you, see what I do believe is you was wearing blue.... Okay okay, so what happened was, really we was wearing green.... SIKE! WE WAS WEARING WHITE THE WHOLE TIME BITCH! But.... you know what. I'm not gonna kill you. Nevermind homie. And then Jet Li gets killed by an unnecessary amount of arrows. That's the movie.
Thank you for this. It did help clear up some confusion in my mind. For some reason this movie is very compelling and I have always regarded it highly. I did not understand why until now. I wonder if "under heaven" refers to "middle kingdom" or "middle land"? It seems as though China, much like the Norse "Midgard", places the world in between a higher and lower plane.
I really like this movie , but something that always bothered me is why do the king accept and incredibly skilled assassin to come 10 meters to him ( why the reward for killing this assassins is to come near to the king ) it just doesn’t make sense if someone is skilled enough tho defeat such enemies why let him near you , but well I think you can’t really think too much on this movie after all this is a world where 2 people can defeat an entire army but still... I’d LOVE someone opinion on this
I'll take a wild crack at this. I think I read a long time ago that the excessive bowing and groveling of the Emperor's servants is historically accurate; that the kings of ancient China were treated with extraordinary reverence. Thus in-universe, the matter of honoring a skilled warrior who killed the sworn enemies of China was a huge deal. For the mighty Emperor to permit anyone to come close to him, sit before him, and speak to him was an extreme honor/gift. However the simpler answer is probably that Jet Li needed to get close so they could have a functional screenplay :D
You are also forgeting the specific details to audio quality… during all the fight scene you can here a series of shouting in sync with the soundtrack of the movie, the shouting wasnt made by the actual actors during sword fight but its a representation of the chinese culture and the shouting sound is a piece artistic rendition often done in the peking opera, the movie also has a piece of operatic aspect to the fight scene
Pronunciations: "Wu-shiah". "Jang Yemoo". But tell us all you know about Chinese culture and films. The cinematorapher is not Zhang Yimous, it is Christopher Doyle. He is best known for his work with Wong Kar Wai.
Hero, the film that was MUCH BETTER than “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”, in my opinion. I really wished that “Hero” was made and brought to theaters earlier than “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”.
RED THEME: Flase story fabricated by NameLess. In the process also makes it deliberatley violent and has two cutscenes with Blood in it. GREY THEME: Also False but true to some extend as there were Emperors Imperial Army witnesseing the event. BLUE: Emperors interpretation. Clean and not vile in presentation GREEN THEME: Distant Memory. One when emperors remembers his encounter with the duo. And once when Broken Sword remembers his distant relation ship. Have a little bit vile nature in Emperors memory as he as very close to his death. WHITE THEME: The true event. Clean , clear and without vile presentation.
Great review of one of my favorite movies. I remember how impressed I was when I saw it in theaters. Have you done a review of "Warriors of Heaven and Earth" (2003)?
Just recently watched this again after years realizing what a masterpiece and what a great review, I have seen Crouching Tiger and House Of Flying Daggers and just love these wuxia movies, can any of the experts here recommend some more of the same quality?
I don't think you're going to find many of the same quality of those three, especially Hero, but these are some of my favorites. Fearless, Blade of the Immortal, Curse of the Golden Flower, Reign of Assassins, Shadow, the Grandmaster. They're not all technically Wu Xia films but they're all good martial arts films with a lot of the same actors.
@@NicksRawClips I was very disappointed with Curse of the Golden Flower because I feel it was overproduced though it had some good subliminal techniques. It was based on a novel called "Thunderstorm". However the 2 megastars Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li showed the same acting style as they did in most of their other movies so that was a disappointment as it felt stale
Wait, so you explained how to pronounce "Qin", and even pronounced "Qin Shi Huang" correctly but chose to pronounce "Qin" as "Khin" for the rest of the video? It's a great review and breakdown but you had that ONE chance for white people to get the chinese pronunciation of the letter "Q" right finally, and you pissed it down the drain. Forever we'll have to put up with white people butchering chinese names like Cao Cao (Tsao Tsao) as Cow Cow and Sun Quan (Sun Chuan) as Sun Kwan.... Also, 天下 might literally mean "Under Heaven/Sky" but it actually means "ALL under heaven" which is a stylistic way of referring to "the world" or figuratively speaking "Every living person", because the ancient chinese thought the entire world consisted of only China, and that they are at the center of it, hence China or “中国" literally meaning "The Middle Kingdom". (Oh, and the word "China" is coined after the first imperial dynasty of Qin. So if you don't pronounce it as "Khina", you have no reason to pronounce "Qin" as "Khin".) The idea that 天下 refers to everything and all lives in the world is the reason why it was translated as "Our land".
I was schooled in a Wester education and was told that Chinese called their country the Middle Kingdom with the implication that Chinese are egocentric and ethnocentric. Though such values DO exist among Chinese (which country doesn't?), I found out later that when the name was coined they WERE in the Middle - with the Mongols in the north, Tibet in the East, Manchus in the East and "Southern Barbarians" south of the Yangtze, which they later subjugated. Early China was not what it is today - much territories had been conquered and annexed and though most of the world sees China as one homogenous culture, there is huge diversity among the different regions, although they are basically operation under one common system, and there are internal conflicts in varying degrees with different provinces. Such a unified system started with Qin Shi Huang (formerly know in the West as Shih Huang Ti) through much bloodshed and in various stages of China's long history there had been division and re-unification at certain points in history till we have what we know as China today.
@@chlimsimon the Southern Barbarians you're referring to are the Hmong/Miao people. We have been at war with the Chinese for thousands of years. Our history traces by 5000 thousand years.
You don't understand American ethics. They exist to protect SOCIETY. That's why ethical standards on such prrofessions as medicine and law aren't about protecting the individual practitioner but about protecting SOCIETY from their transgressons against the LIMITS on their "freedom" to exercise their skills. Cllue: "freedom" is not antithetical to the rule of law. In fact, the "freedoms" Americans love to cite are secured IN LAW. Without the law, there is no "freedom"; there is chaos.
Pretty happy at least some western guy could pretty much say something interesting and , somehow, 'accurate' about this old movie. Its much easier for someone grown up in Chinese culture to mentally understand this movie's idea. Anyway it is still historically romanced, as I don't think many people really care, or really think about what the emperor's own purpose(emperor in Chinese means so different from western ones, like emperors of Saint Roman Empire....), the action of uniting the China and ending the chaos from way itself means everything, China should be united, thats like something naturally right in Chinese civilization history, its not much about the feeling about someone or two. And even if the black one was killed still there will be another one sit on the throne and finally unite the country. In my mind that's the most romantic part(and also realistic part) about the history itself. Anyway I'm happy someone still remember this movie, as its one of the favorites of mine too.
The soundtrack of Hero is something truly amazing
This is by far the best movie review for this movie. I am really impressed that a westerner would understand our Chinese culture and social ideas so well.
Thank you, that means a lot to me. When I made this video last year, my biggest fear was sounding ignorant so I put a ton of work into the script.
I agree! WHAT A GREAT JOB!!!!!!
Ethics around the collective sounds pretty communist to me
@@nerdlyimpulse4586 Thanks man, you made me understand the movie much much better. I watched Hero recently, and it's much more enjoyable.
Yeah well, they aren't very abstract cultural or social ideas and many of them mirror Western ideas and culture.
Really awesome review with a lot of analysis of details in this movie! As a Chinese, I am really impressed by the depth and accuracy of your review. You did a good job! Here are some of my personal interpretations. About the colors in this movie, you did an excellent job of analyzing them. I only have some slightly different ideas. For the color of blue, I would define it as the "Nobleness". In this scene, which is told by the King, all of the assassins showed their noble virtue. They were calm, altruistic and persistent. Also for the color of black at the beginning of this movie, the reason that the director chose this color as the main color of King's Palace and the army is that in the Qin Dynasty, which is a dynasty in the Chinese history established by the Shihuang (the prototype of the character "King"), the emperor admired the color black. Finally, here's an interesting fact to help you understand the spirit of this movie. There's a Chinese word “戈” which stands for the meaning of a kind of weapon (like a spear). This word is also a representative of the idea of "weapon", "conflict" and "war". There's another Chinese word “止” which means "stop". When you put these two words together and merge them with each other, you will get a new word “武” (you can see it from the shapes of these three characters). However, the word “武” stands for the meaning of "force" and "power". So you will see how our Chinese comprehend the idea of "force". We believe that force should be used to stop the wars and settle the conflicts. We should not use the force to bully and kill others. On the contrary, we believe the force should be used to protect peace and harmony. This is the highest level of the spirit of both Kungfu and Chinese traditional values. And that's the reason why the Nameless warrior didn't kill the King.
Wow, thats super interesting. Im learning Chinese, so thats a really cool insight.
Man, help me out here. I absolutely love this movie, but the ending almost ruins it for me. I watched it yesterday after a decade and than I went searching for reviews to clear my mind about the ending. The best one I got - the one I most agree with - is the Stephen Hunter: "So the movie, in the end, endorses his right of conquest and unification on the grounds that fewer people will die than if the six nations continued to war against one another. To make an omelet, one must break some eggs, though nobody ever pays too much attention to the poor eggs. That's the justification of all tyrants -- tyrants in nations and tyrants in offices: Do it my way so there's less conflict. Obey me and it'll be better. Why do all this fighting against me; peace through conquest.
That was the king of Qin's reasoning and it was all the other big bad ones as well: Hitler and Stalin and most particularly that latter-day king of Qin named Mao, another great unifier who stopped the fighting and killed only between 38 million and 67 million in the process."
I truly understand the concept you said about force being used to defend, to keep the peace and to preserve the culture. That's why I think the ending is a little propaganda. How the hell a king who wants to unify every culture in ONE language, destroying people's homes, cultures and families is portrayed like a idealized, sentimental leader?? The nameless represented exactly the nameless who dies in the hand of tyrant, so the nameless was using his sword exactly to prove the point that harmony and peace is not the same thing as submisison to a unified governement.
I really - REALLY - want to enjoy every bit of the movie, but the ending for me is a confusion of peace with silence. The propaganda is of peace, but the reality - in CCP's Chine is silence. (And the director, who got in trouble with them in his early years, dosent seem to care much more since he made the Party's birthday some years ago. It seems very differente than what Kurosawa, to say an example, did rennouncing propaganda movies after his first years.
@@BardockFLIT This is just my two cents on the movie, as someone who was born and raised in China. I don't think every movie has to be political or have something to say about modern society's issues, and in fact I don't think this movie is trying to do that at all. Your interpretation is tinted by your view of Chinese politics but I don't see this as having anything to do with it.
When we look at this story, it's set in the warring states period, before China became China. Over 2000 years ago. I will stress that it's "Warring" States, not... peaceful coexistence states period. Put in the position of the sovereign of a nation state, what would you have done? Not fight back? It's a war, and in those days you either win or you die. The ruler of Qin made the simple choice to end the war by winning, his only choice. There has been generations of slaughter, countless dead, vengeance begets vengeance. Given the chance of peace for the next generation to come, what would you have him do instead? On top of that, what do you think would have happened had Nameless killed the king, a happy ending? No. Qin will fall without leadership, many will die, fields will burn and countless will starve when they are left with nothing. It's purely a question of practicality.
I think it's a great piece of historical fiction, a retelling of past events. I can't find any deliberate political message in the movie, it's a story about people who try their damnedest to follow their own ideals. I think that's what makes a hero. There's no need to view it in a political light, and I think doing so is a disservice to the brilliant work that went into making this masterpiece.
@@PresentHeroes I really appreciate your time and your answer. O am not the type who sees politcs in everything, specially in art. And I understand the position the ruler of Qin is. My point isnt the absolute similarity of the story and China today, but It is hard for me to not see peace = silence when the Hero gives up and appeal tô the kindness of the leader. Its hard tô buy.
And in one thing I disagree: to follow your own ideals does not make you a hero. It can make you a hero, depending on your ideals, but who believes in that in cyinical society? To follow your ideals not rarely makes tou a fool, If not a complete crazy.
But i really appreciate your answer, my friend. Thank you
@@BardockFLIT No problem! I like talking about these things especially since I like historical fiction in general. I get that you see it in a political light, I personally don't. Especially because in reality the king did survive to unite China, becoming the first emperor. The Hero didn't give up, it's actually the opposite. He followed through with his ideals that were changed by Broken Sword. "In order to have unity and peace, you must not kill the king". But he knew that having come this far and having his original plan be discovered, he was going to die if he doesn't kill the king. So why doesn't he? Because if he does, it would be for a personal vendetta without honor. It would have horrible consequences too, with the king of Qin dead the war would continue for decades to come, Qin would be invaded without leadership and murder, pillage and rape will come with it.
So in the end, the harder but more honorable choice is to give his own life up, ensuring the King survives to bring peace through conquest which is the only option for peace in that situation. He is a Hero, for his self sacrifice for the greater good, and for following his ideals through to the end.
If you couldn't tell already this movie tugs on my emotions but I've tried to remain unbiased...
Thank you for your review! Your interpretation is inspiring! I am a Chinese, and I was 10 years old when this movie release. (Apparently, I didn't get it when I was 10). One thing I found interesting is that even though nameless give up his assassination at the end. He still stabs king of Qin by the handle of his sword. By doing this action nameless proved that he could kill the king. He gives up just because he believes the king can stop the chaos, bring harmonious to people( which is the primary purpose of Qing King). As we saw at the beginning of this movie, Qin King is very arrogance and losing his purpose. Nameless action is a huge wake-up call to the King. If the king lost his purpose, then thousands and hundreds of "nameless" could kill him. Nameless remind is successful because at the end the King recalls his purpose and his arrogance disappear.
I'm glad you liked it!
Yes, I agree with your breakdown of why Nameless goes through with the motion but doesn't land the kill. Nameless enters the chamber already transformed by Broken Sword's message, so his entire goal is to spread that message to the Emperor. Not only is his action meaningful, but the camera shot/fake out is pretty great too :)
Are you Chinese?
most foreigners don't understand the "天下（under sky）"meaning, ancient china has a old phase"普天之下莫非王土"（all the world under the sky，is the emperor's land）.so in chinese mind,the world(or the broundrary) is under the sky.天下 is the world
Incredible review. One of my all time favorites. I always felt like Broken Sword was the true hero of this film because he understood the bigger picture and dedicated the rest of his life to sharing his ideals.
Huh. The only review on TH-cam that actually goes into detail about the nuances of the movie, not just 'it's pretty looking'. Props to you.
Well reviewed! And the colors tells us now what they are ment for. This is not a martial-art film alone but has a deeper meaning. According to Jet Li when he read the script he got teary eyed or cried. He turned down Choruching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but memorable and deep movie came and what Jet Li had been longing for.
A bit late, but I saw green as "Wisdom". It displays when Brokensword comes up with the realization of "Unity Under The Heavens"....
Edit:
And "Growth" was a great reflection of that color too, which you stated.
this is the only movie review i have ever enjoyed
This movie makes me cry every time I see it (alone 😂). Everything comes together so well: action, drama, romance, culture, artistry. It is simply a masterpiece of film!
One big mistake in the post story narration is: the Emporer did not start to build the walls. The walls were already built by the different warring states to fence off the nomads. The Emporer did connect all the old walls and make them one.
Each person may have a different definition of a hero. But it is certain that when one has the courage to give up his life, he must be brave at that moment. Perhaps people prefer to use the terms "negative" and "weak" to describe this self-liberation behavior.
But in fact this "negative" is also relative. The relationship between the borken sword and the Flying Snow is actually nothing more than a sad couple ending their love in the saddest way. If they did not have any intersection with King Qin. Their love will appear boring and sad. You must know that lyrical couples are too many in this world. Not all people have the opportunity to assassinate the king or have the opportunity to complete a great career.
Nameless is exactly the same. If he is deliberately trying to kill his hateful neighbours, then he will be considered crazy and murderous.
We must be very aware of a problem. King Qin created these "heroes." Just as history is written by winners. When "negative behavior" is attached to this powerful objective reality. It may be defined as "great dedication."
There are no heroes in this world, only the winners have fulfilled them. This is actually only the mercy of the strong. How cruel is reason! It is only the mercy of the strong man that the audience is intoxicated. The lovely Qin Wang gave nameless such an opportunity and gave an assassin a chance to come in close contact with him. And also gave the enemy the opportunity to forgive him!
If we are concerned about the theme of the hero again. If this movie can only have one hero, I think it must be King of Qin.
When many years later I reviewed this movie. It still gives me a strong shock. This shock has nothing to do with the meaning of the hero and the shadow behind it. It is about a great sadness.
*Great* insights. Thinking of Broken Sword and Flying Snow's romance/relationship without their shared hatred of the King is very fascinating to think about. And yes, the discussion of what makes a true hero and the moral ambiguity of heroes who fight for their ambitions and dreams is far more complex than this review had time to even get into.
This is my favorite movie of all time!
I have 2 physical copies, and a digital copy (gonna buy the director’s cut sometime next week)
One way I like to interpret the title “Hero” as it relates to the main cast
I personally feel like Nameless was the protagonist, but Broken Sword was the HERO! Without him changing Nameless’ mind, (the Our Land speech) he would’ve killed the Emperor and MORE chaos would’ve spread throughout the land. I’m probably wrong about this interpretation, but it’s interesting to think about.
Basically, most asian culture stresses the importance of the group, whereas western culture stresses the importance of the individual.
If group culture is truly the emphasis of the story, then the writer of the movie pick a bad example. That's because the Qin dynasty last only 18 years and war returns right afterwards. This makes nameless' choice to not kill the king meaningless.
@@otsa120 It wasn't all in vain though, the Qin set up the blue print for all the dynasties to come.
@@UrAvgGamer sure Qin dynasty has ots contribution , but at what cost.
A unified regime comes at a cost, in short term, the lives and rights of the people. In the long run though, just look at how China fair against European when colonists reach China. A unified regime has no competitors, like a monopoly.
@@otsa120 Well Qin did major reforms and it stuck with all the dynasties that followed. After it fell, what immediately followed was a short war and 400 years of relative peace from the unified Han Dynasty, then it split a few times again(war) and had multiple successful unified dynasties with golden ages (Tang, Song, Ming, Qing). I don't think the movie is trying to say group culture is the best, but it is just presenting the point of view of China where when they are unified, prosperity and peace are often ushered. I don't agree with the example that the century of humiliation was caused by their group culture(that regime was not popular in China to begin with), and it is also not the first time that China fell from outside powers(Mongols, Manchus).
@@UrAvgGamer I guess you are not grasping what I mean by the cost of a unified regime. What is the cost of maintaining a unified regime? Peace does not necessary lead to prosperity. Before I further elaborate, what's your view on Chinese methods to maintain such long stretches of peace?
My example of comparing European colonist against China is not focusing on group culture itself or external threat of the Chinese civilization. It is to show competing regimes does not means destructions, and unified regime with long period of peace can be worse off.
1) European countries are not unified since the Roman times. Nations wage wars against each other frequently.
2) China in comparison have long stretches of peace and is unified.
Yet it turns out Europe develops faster and became more prosper. The question then becomes, how does this happened. My conclusion is that "peace does not necessary lead to prosperity" and there is a cost for maintaining this so called "peace". What is yours?
Took me 19 years to understand this, I was like wtf before but now I’m 27 but this Sa classic
dude i was doing a review for my composition class and this video helped me so much thanks for the video nice work
Black was the favorite color of the Qin emperor. In traditional beliefs Zhou has the “national color” red meaning fire. Qin with their black color or water defeated Zhou. Water defeated fire. A philosophy Qin propagandized in heavily using black
Fading moon is there to help the audience know how the characters make them feel or supposed to react.
This video is incredible as summarising EVERYTHING from this incredible movie. I have my IB comparative study and chose to compare this film and Kill Bill Volume 1 and it has helped me so much! I can't thank you enough!
Chinese netizens love to compare Hero to Crouching Tiger and to shit on this film while singing praises about Tiger. While I agree that Crouching Tiger has interesting character development and overall good cinematography, it seems to me that Ang Lee hadn’t quite mastered the level of cinematic/visual language that Zhang Yimou has come to be recognized for. Like you said here, Hero is steeped in color symbolisms and exemplifies the perfect marriage between color and movement. I also love how the film pays homage to the use of layered perceptions in Roshmon without coming across as ripping off that Japanese masterpiece. This also makes for a more intriguing structure than Crouching Tiger’s more linear/straightforward narrative.
Hero is the better and more interesting film to me. Crouching tiger is depressing!
Why does it just have 157views man?!?!?
Incredible review mate. Loved every second.
My interpretation for white was purity. No lies, just the truth and the basest of emotions, like love, and devotion.
awesome review for the movie. Really appreciate your hard work and contribution to make impressive understanding of this movie
Thanks for the review. I watched this one back in theaters in 2004 and have watched it over the years. I am not sure what the trilogy is called, but I always considered this the start of Zhang Yimou's "History of China" trilogy. Hero was easily the best of the 3 movies (Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower). Shockingly, the quality of the writing went down even as the subsequent films had higher budgets and amazing sets. I really only considered the primary colors as important (red, blue, whitish and the added green). I mostly agree with your interpretation of the colors, but I would say that green is mystery in this one. The Emperor cuts down all the green in the throne room, thus, leaving it bare and lacking of mystery. When Broken Sword and Flying Snow meet, again, green. Mystery. This one is still a favorite for me (among others).
Great review, the first time I saw it as a kid I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. I was disappointed that Nameless died at the end by the arrows, I thought that shot was amazing when I saw the trailers. But watching it again later on and then a few months back, I absolutely love this film and the message.
When the first emperor began conquering different factions of China he was seen as a power hungry mongrel. He even killed his own family to prove how ruthless he is. Makavelli (spell check) expressed that weakness cannot be shown and ultimately principle was the point to prove, no matter how wrong it felt. Through generations, China was at war with each other until a King (Emperor) became powerful enough to unite under one flag and stop the endless wars between the divided parts. It’s pretty simple, although the King started as a a man who sought power, ultimately the end goal was to unite under one flag as a means to an end. Nameless and Broken Sword put their own vengeance aside and sought for peace amongst their country. If Nameless had killed the King it would just send everyone back into division and turmoil and everyone who had died had been in vain. This film was just a dramatized history lesson but still holds true in that time.
Found you just now, wanted to refresh my memory. Great breakdown and interpretation. Thank you.
This is great! A really good analysis of an amazing film.
One of my favorite movies... EVER, so much story, colour use and "whatever you said", but I didnt analyze the movie at all, I just enjoyed it.
This movie shows what holywood are not able to create anymore.
Action, story, plots, visuals and on and on.
- holywood just have action, one liners and more action.
Maybe this has to do with the audience, maybe Holywood movies has been so deevolved over the years due to the stupid audience who will buy a ticket for any movie that contains explotions.
( just think about the new StarWars movies, complete flop.. )
Also, the "house of flying daggers" are a great movie, but I still put Hero on top.
Hollywood seem to be creating movies solely for the box office (as it is usually used to measure success) and seem to overdose of special effects to attract crowds to movie theatres so audiences do not watch it at home.
Um. I think there’s a historical aspect here. The “our land”/“under heaven” as a winning argument smacks a lot of the sinicizatiom policies pursued by the modern Chinese state. Thus the assassins must give up on their dreams of revenge against Qin as despite whatever wrongs have been done to them, only being subsumed into a single Chinese state will bring an end to the warring states period, and thus peace. And if that reading hikes, what is haooening to the Uyghurs makes this film a lot harder to like.
Gratz, bro. You get it. Thus you enjoy it. People should try that more. Slight differences in colors interpretation but not significant. If I may add. The hole in the wall where Nameless stood taking shots. That negative space is for all the “nameless heroes” who choose to do the right thing throughout history without ever being recognized. Anywho, here’s a like and sub. Best wishes.
Qin was still a king that Time, He became the emperor after he united the land
Well that was extremely enlightening. I viewed the colours themes in particular a whole different way but i would say your explaination makes much more sense than mine. I definitely viewed it through western eyes but this review makes much more sense. All that aside, this film is truly one of the most beautiful & visually stunning films of all time. Visually it is my favourite ever & i am so thankful that i watched it in all it’s glory at the theatre...three times! Great review mike, many thanks.
Not sure if you will see this since its been long time, but Black was the color of Qin. Qin Shi Huang forbade colors and thats why even the emperor's robe, for the Qin dynasty and Han dynasty following it was Black Color.
For black he said was the color of mindlessness. Where as different colors influence human emotion, Black color does not. As he demands his court to follow the Law of the Land without emotion. This is also the reason why He was forced to kill Nameless, as his court reminds him in Unison at the end "To follow your law, You must Kill!", "For the people to follow your law, You must Kill!". Thats why he kills Nameless even though he did not want to... and even though it was his law, he had to follow thru in order to be the respected Authority.
And lastly, we see that Broken Sword was right abt the King because only a King with such Integerity was able to Unite the Land.
One of my favorite movies. Thank you for this video!
GameCube in the background and a Star Wars T-shirt, I liked this guy even before watching all of his review.
EXCELLENT juxtaposition of eastern and western ideals. And together they form ☯️ balance. The individual is important. The collective is important. Yet one cannot subsume the other in whole. They must co-exist together. Tyranny of the masses, unbridled anarchical individualism… both are wrong. Integrity, accountability, the whole/bigger picture, ego/pride, passion, nature, ideals, truth, duality (black/white)…
Man, what an awesome.review, I love this movie as much as you do, so, you got a new subscriber
Here is what I interpret the colors:
Black = The element of water, symbolizing the destruction.
Blue = The element of wood, symbolizing immortality and advancement.
Red= The element of fire, symbolizing luck, joy, and happiness. including passion and sex.
Yellow = the element of earth, symbolizing power, royalty, and prosperity.
White = the element of metal, symbolizing death, purity and innocence.
Green = jade color, symbolizing prosperity, success, and good luck.
Is this make sense?
I can't wait for this channel to take off. This reminds me of watching really old school reviews on TGWTG
I saw this comment of yours a few weeks ago at a time when I was feeling discouraged and deflated. It gave me the boost that I needed to create my next big project, in record time, that I'll be posting soon.
So I wanted to be sure to thank you for your kind words. I just subbed to you with my regular-person account.
@@nerdlyimpulse4586 I'll always be rooting for you!!
Thank you for the great review. I watched this movie last night and really enjoyed it.
This review is both enlightening and entertaining!
I watch this young and it still makes my hair stand up; heroes
EAST: Collective
WEST: Individualism
For me, Hero is a perfect movie. I score it 10 out of 10. Loved every aspect of the movie. And I was deeply moved.
17 years later and i finally understood the movie… 😅 thanks to my youtube algorithm lol
Wow! What a brilliant review. Thank you so much for making this video.
Did you notice that the acrobatic superhuman feats only take place during the non-white segments, adding the to idea that they are exaggerated retelling of stories/myths?
Great review and interpretation
Awesome Review! I really like the colour explanation Thank you so much~!!!
Glad you liked it!
Hero is the best Marital arts movie made till date. This review is equal to the artistic masterpiece.
What the movie didn't tell us is that the Qin dynasty is destroyed shortly after it unified China and civil war resumed. History remembers the Qin dynasty as a ruthless regime, and was made as an example that ruthless rule cannot last long. Therefore, picking the story to base around the Qin emperor is a very poor choice. Broken Sword believes that the hatred of Flying Snow was nothing when comparing to the pain of everyone. Yet, he forgot that there are numerous victims of the Qin war machines and ruthless rules, their anger and hatred is the strongest de-stabilising force of the land. Therefore, Nameless' sacrifice is pointless in the grand scheme of things.
Thank you for such a good video! Really helped me out for my film class!
Wow. I'm flattered!
"The lone warrior who walks his own path" is not trope unique to America. Plenty of that in East Asian cinema and literature.
Hero is an important movie for the Chinese movie industry. While many elements in the movie are handle really well, such as using color as underlying schemes of the story, story telling from different accounts, but as a whole it is quite flawed and quite underwhelming for the Chinese audiences.
While Sky and Moon are somewhat essential characters to advance certain story beats, they are completely restricted to just that---devices. This perhaps is quite hard to avoid since the core of the presentation is "the message". All characters unsubtly served this one simple purpose: to deliver the message.
The other huge problem with this picture is Broken Swords' realization of the idea of "Our land" or "Under heaven". His change of mind is almost shoved down to audiences' throat without even any attempt of explaining. It's just so raw and rough. Another similar but even worse instance is how the King, at the final moment of his life, suddenly saw into Broken swords ideal. He immediately put that into his own words as if talking directly to the audience in case we missed the plot.
The picture is half success half failure in my opinion and that's probably why it received very mixed reviews at that time. While it is quite "clever" in telling a overall story, it achieved so at the cost of plausible twist and natural characters.
Dude, Thanks, that was very interesting. I believe I read that Doyle the Light director just choose colors preaty ramdomnly so i guess you are not very accurrate, but... your interpretation was very very interesting. thank you very much!
Yeah, I read that too while I was researching the film..... that's why I stuck in the disclaimer about it being my own interpretation. I believe the director said the colors were chosen primarily to organize the flashbacks/viewpoints. But that's no fun.
My interpretation was very similar to yours. This movies is a master piece.
I remember watching this movie when i was young and i couldn't understand anything, firstly because it was in the Chinese language (Language barrier), secondly shifting from one scene to another and yet in the previous one so and so died or was injured confused me more and more and lastly the execution of Nameless wasn't my favorite part as i a big fan of Jet Li's character in movies and i obviously couldn't enjoy seeing him being killed in a movie. Thank you for finally breaking it down
The way I've been explaining this movie to people:
So Jet Li infiltrates this King's palace. He's going to kill him, but before he does that, The King asks how did he pull off such a great feat to get in his presence.
So Jet Lit begins to tell the story.
Alright, so we was wearing red...
The King says I don't believe you, see what I do believe is you was wearing blue....
Okay okay, so what happened was, really we was wearing green....
SIKE! WE WAS WEARING WHITE THE WHOLE TIME BITCH!
But.... you know what. I'm not gonna kill you. Nevermind homie.
And then Jet Li gets killed by an unnecessary amount of arrows.
That's the movie.
💀💀
Thanks. I love this movie too.
Please make a review for The House Of Flying Daggers!
Thank you for this. It did help clear up some confusion in my mind. For some reason this movie is very compelling and I have always regarded it highly. I did not understand why until now. I wonder if "under heaven" refers to "middle kingdom" or "middle land"? It seems as though China, much like the Norse "Midgard", places the world in between a higher and lower plane.
incredibly informative and eye-opening to watch! thanks dude!
Glad you liked it!
"Whatever, it's Zang now." Really put in the efforts trying to pronounce a foreign name correctly.
I really like this movie , but something that always bothered me is why do the king accept and incredibly skilled assassin to come 10 meters to him ( why the reward for killing this assassins is to come near to the king ) it just doesn’t make sense if someone is skilled enough tho defeat such enemies why let him near you , but well I think you can’t really think too much on this movie after all this is a world where 2 people can defeat an entire army but still...
I’d LOVE someone opinion on this
I'll take a wild crack at this.
I think I read a long time ago that the excessive bowing and groveling of the Emperor's servants is historically accurate; that the kings of ancient China were treated with extraordinary reverence. Thus in-universe, the matter of honoring a skilled warrior who killed the sworn enemies of China was a huge deal. For the mighty Emperor to permit anyone to come close to him, sit before him, and speak to him was an extreme honor/gift.
However the simpler answer is probably that Jet Li needed to get close so they could have a functional screenplay :D
King, "You're unarmed, how are you going to assassinate me?"
Answer: he is unarmed.
You are also forgeting the specific details to audio quality… during all the fight scene you can here a series of shouting in sync with the soundtrack of the movie, the shouting wasnt made by the actual actors during sword fight but its a representation of the chinese culture and the shouting sound is a piece artistic rendition often done in the peking opera, the movie also has a piece of operatic aspect to the fight scene
Pronunciations: "Wu-shiah". "Jang Yemoo".
But tell us all you know about Chinese culture and films.
The cinematorapher is not Zhang Yimous, it is Christopher Doyle. He is best known for his work with Wong Kar Wai.
Great great review👍👍👍
Hero, the film that was MUCH BETTER than “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”, in my opinion. I really wished that “Hero” was made and brought to theaters earlier than “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”.
Awesome review. I didn't realize it had all that bad ass shit behind it. Thanks,.. that's deep.
Very good, thanks!
RED THEME: Flase story fabricated by NameLess. In the process also makes it deliberatley violent and has two cutscenes with Blood in it.
GREY THEME: Also False but true to some extend as there were Emperors Imperial Army witnesseing the event.
BLUE: Emperors interpretation. Clean and not vile in presentation
GREEN THEME: Distant Memory. One when emperors remembers his encounter with the duo. And once when Broken Sword remembers his distant relation ship. Have a little bit vile nature in Emperors memory as he as very close to his death.
WHITE THEME: The true event. Clean , clear and without vile presentation.
This video deserves more views!
Great review of one of my favorite movies. I remember how impressed I was when I saw it in theaters. Have you done a review of "Warriors of Heaven and Earth" (2003)?
Just recently watched this again after years realizing what a masterpiece and what a great review, I have seen Crouching Tiger and House Of Flying Daggers and just love these wuxia movies, can any of the experts here recommend some more of the same quality?
I don't think you're going to find many of the same quality of those three, especially Hero, but these are some of my favorites. Fearless, Blade of the Immortal, Curse of the Golden Flower, Reign of Assassins, Shadow, the Grandmaster. They're not all technically Wu Xia films but they're all good martial arts films with a lot of the same actors.
@@NicksRawClips I was very disappointed with Curse of the Golden Flower because I feel it was overproduced though it had some good subliminal techniques. It was based on a novel called "Thunderstorm". However the 2 megastars Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li showed the same acting style as they did in most of their other movies so that was a disappointment as it felt stale
I'm watching this movie right now & needed help breaking it down
it's beautiful just watch it.
You truly understood the movie
This is my favourite movie ever
Lovely analysis: Kudos :)
Check out the movie 'The Emperor and the Assassin' for a more realistic and almost Shakespearean historical take on the story.
That was more historically correct
Love what you are doing. Keep going at it!
man, I love your energy!
It was / is an excellent movie took me 3 time to understand fully
I felt if I put English dubs on it would take away from experience
Mind blowing epic movie of chaina past👌👍👍👍
My rating of this movie is 9/10💐
This is pretty goddamn good, cool overview
Think about it its the main key if u can undrestand
Thank you for your hardwork! 🤧
I loved that movie
Wait, so you explained how to pronounce "Qin", and even pronounced "Qin Shi Huang" correctly but chose to pronounce "Qin" as "Khin" for the rest of the video? It's a great review and breakdown but you had that ONE chance for white people to get the chinese pronunciation of the letter "Q" right finally, and you pissed it down the drain.
Forever we'll have to put up with white people butchering chinese names like Cao Cao (Tsao Tsao) as Cow Cow and Sun Quan (Sun Chuan) as Sun Kwan....
Also, 天下 might literally mean "Under Heaven/Sky" but it actually means "ALL under heaven" which is a stylistic way of referring to "the world" or figuratively speaking "Every living person", because the ancient chinese thought the entire world consisted of only China, and that they are at the center of it, hence China or “中国" literally meaning "The Middle Kingdom". (Oh, and the word "China" is coined after the first imperial dynasty of Qin. So if you don't pronounce it as "Khina", you have no reason to pronounce "Qin" as "Khin".) The idea that 天下 refers to everything and all lives in the world is the reason why it was translated as "Our land".
I was schooled in a Wester education and was told that Chinese called their country the Middle Kingdom with the implication that Chinese are egocentric and ethnocentric. Though such values DO exist among Chinese (which country doesn't?), I found out later that when the name was coined they WERE in the Middle - with the Mongols in the north, Tibet in the East, Manchus in the East and "Southern Barbarians" south of the Yangtze, which they later subjugated. Early China was not what it is today - much territories had been conquered and annexed and though most of the world sees China as one homogenous culture, there is huge diversity among the different regions, although they are basically operation under one common system, and there are internal conflicts in varying degrees with different provinces. Such a unified system started with Qin Shi Huang (formerly know in the West as Shih Huang Ti) through much bloodshed and in various stages of China's long history there had been division and re-unification at certain points in history till we have what we know as China today.
@@chlimsimon the Southern Barbarians you're referring to are the Hmong/Miao people. We have been at war with the Chinese for thousands of years. Our history traces by 5000 thousand years.
The way he says ‘Wuxia’ lol
Shiet i need to rewatch the movie
Subscribed nuff said
This was great! Thank you so much!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
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According to the DIRECTORRRR
You don't understand American ethics. They exist to protect SOCIETY. That's why ethical standards on such prrofessions as medicine and law aren't about protecting the individual practitioner but about protecting SOCIETY from their transgressons against the LIMITS on their "freedom" to exercise their skills.
Cllue: "freedom" is not antithetical to the rule of law. In fact, the "freedoms" Americans love to cite are secured IN LAW. Without the law, there is no "freedom"; there is chaos.
Beautiful.
Pretty happy at least some western guy could pretty much say something interesting and , somehow, 'accurate' about this old movie. Its much easier for someone grown up in Chinese culture to mentally understand this movie's idea. Anyway it is still historically romanced, as I don't think many people really care, or really think about what the emperor's own purpose(emperor in Chinese means so different from western ones, like emperors of Saint Roman Empire....), the action of uniting the China and ending the chaos from way itself means everything, China should be united, thats like something naturally right in Chinese civilization history, its not much about the feeling about someone or two. And even if the black one was killed still there will be another one sit on the throne and finally unite the country. In my mind that's the most romantic part(and also realistic part) about the history itself. Anyway I'm happy someone still remember this movie, as its one of the favorites of mine too.
Nailed it but only 90%
This review is even more relevent in 2022