So, Hero is (at least on a surface reading) about change and accepting change for the greater good (the greater good) at the expense of old views. It includes someone who refuses to accept the conditions of that change destroying everything they hold dear and basically ruining it for everyone around them. The film itself was made as a response to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. CTHD was basically a western, dressed up in the trappings of a Chinese Martial Arts epic, made to appeal to the west and BY GOD did it work. Not only did it make a bunch of cash, but it generated a lot of mainstream interest in martial arts films instead of just arthouse, cult film, types. It did, however, cop a lot of flak because it wasnt *really* a martial arts epic (or, arguably, a chinese film), but only using elements as window dressing, so while it performed beautifully in the US, it only did reasonably well in China. Hero, on the other hand, was exactly the kind of arthouse cult film that the mainstream had been ignoring for years and, although it made a ton of cash when people who loved CTHD turned out in droves to check out the next film like that to hit the big theatres, it soured the pot and the next attempt to cash in on CTHDs success, House of Flying Daggers (Of note, Zhang Ziyi is in all three) absolutely TANKED. Tl;dr - Hero kinda mimics its own story and, in the process, ruined its own market.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 09:41:38 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015