Hero comments

Jeff wrote me an email claiming that Ninja Scroll was a better movie than Hero. What I thought was a simple, bullet-point rebuttal turned into a novella. I spent so much time dwelling on this, the resulting pages of run-on sentences must be blogged:


From: JRXXXXX@aol.com Add to Address Book
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 22:46:59 EDT
Subject: Re: when you've got nothing to do at work...
To: thejeffcho@yahoo.com

Hell ya--man that sounds great--it's cool you are doing so many different things--I'm exhausted---I always do too much, go out and party it up.. Today I was a dork and was reading--I was thinking--here's a good philosohpical question--Okay, I saw Hero and it was cool---but---Dude, Anime Ninja Scroll, so much better--don't you think? Because, because it's just so much more inventive and creative--they just take things in so many more different directions. I respect Hero, yeah it had cool parts--but the fighting, I don't know didn't do it for me..

(the rest of the email, which included shamless descriptions of Jeff's soccer prowess, was cut off)

Take it easy,
Jeff

----------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 00:06:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Jeff Cho" Add to Address Book
Subject: Re: when you've got nothing to do at work...
To: JRXXXXX@aol.com

About the comparison betw/ Ninja Scroll and Hero:

Well, I think a comparison is hard to make because they
are just two totally different kinds of movie.

I consider Ninja Scroll as one of the coolest action
movies, across both anime and live genres. There's just
something about the timing and setup of the action
sequences that made it super exciting to watch. I
don't know, I think it's somehow comparable to jazz or
blues--how it coils and builds up tension and then "Oh
God I know it's coming it's coming AND HERE IT COMES"
releases it at the end--it's just incredibly
satisfying to watch. Come to think of it, it's almost
blatantly sexual.

On the other hand, I don't consider Hero as an action
flick at all. Yes there are some really creative
action sequences, but if the action in Ninja Scroll
(and those of many other actioin flicks) is like the
electric guitar, Hero's action is more like classical
violin (actually, the Chinese equivalent of classical
violin would be more fitting but I don't know what the
instrument is called in English). Action scenes in
Hero does nothing for my adrenaline levels at all, but
certain scenes left me so breathless I can still
recall them--the fight between raindrops, the fight in
the autumn forest, and the final fight in the
pond--which I could not do for Ninja Scroll. The
reason for this is partly cinematographic, and partly
beause I think Hero captured a lot of the nuances of
classical Kung Fu novels, which I grew up reading.
The closest comparison for Hero would be Crouching
Tiger Hidden Dragon, but I still consider Hero to be
superior for the following reasons:

1) Better cinematography: well, Hero costed a lot
more.

2) Better actors: I can't recall the actors' names in
English without some research, but I know for a fact
that between them there were multiple Asian Oscars,
and the older lover of that caligraphy writing guy has
actually been nominated (I'm not sure if she won) for an
Oscar in mid 80s. And Jet Lee is a martial artist first
and an actor second (way second). He studied martial
arts for 20 years, and has won multiple international
competitions. In the eyes of Chinese, and the eyes of
the Chinese government, Jet Lee is the Yao Ming of
martial arts. When Jet Lee does something as simple
as an arrow step (one knee bent one knee extended),
even a layman can tell that it looks better than when
Jackie Chan does it (who's background is, well, the
circus; I will not even discuss Chow-Young-Fat). So,
better dramatic talent, better martial art
talent=better martial art movie.

3) Dialog: non Chinese-speakers will not be able to
appreciate this, but Hero's dialog is spoken in the
Chinese equivalent of Shakespearean/Chaucerean
Middle English. Even I found it hard to understand
the precise meaning at times, but that does not deter
my admiration for Hero's dedication to authentcity.
Also, Hero's lines are delivered in near-perfect
Beijing Mandarin, even by the Hong Kong actors; that
fact alone made it a lot more believable than CTHD.
The lines of CTHD were delivered by a mix of Taiwanese,
Hong Kongnese, and Chinese dialects, which COMPLETELY
destroyed the credibility of the movie being set in
ancient China. Imagine a movie about the American
Civil War in Australian and New Zealand
English--that's what CTHD felt like.

Slight digression: the fact that the hottie in CTHD
fell for that Taiwanese illiterate, whose inability to
e-nun-ci-ate words correctly is as laughable as his
goatee/FuManChu attempt, killed the movie for me.
There's no way that would happen in real life. No
Fucking Way. She was way too hot for this to happen.

4) History: while Qin-Shi-Huang was in fact constantly
under the threat of assasination, I think that the
assasination attempt via "Here's my buddy's head"
actually happened to a different tyrant in a different
era. But still, Hero took a fresh historical
perspective by portraying Qin-Shi-Huang as an
ambitious visionary rather than a tyrant. The name
"China" was derived from the name of his dynasty (Qin
=Chin), the first in Chinese history. He did a ton
of good by uniting China, standardizing currency,
abolishing feudalism and building roads and canals to
facilitate trade. Yes he killed and tortured tons
of people for the Great Wall and his tomb, yes he did
burn books, but personally I really don't think
burying Confucian scholars alive was such a bad thing.
By dwelling on China's past (which was, undisputedly,
GOAT), the movie really stirs up the ethnic pride of
all Chinese. The fact that it was not well received
(i.e. anything short of 23 Oscars) internationally
only proves its worthiness and uniqueness as a Chinese
movie.

I have nothing else to add.

cho



=====
"It's like Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder, they had their handicaps. It didn't stop them from making
their mark."
-- Shyne, discussing how a 10-year jail sentence could affect his career