Hero!

PWEI

I'd like to thank the people on this site who recommended Hero not so long ago.After about five minutes I knew I was about to witness something special.Its truly an amazing piece of work;the camera work,cinematography,
the sets,the costumes and of course the fantastic combat scenes. I know its due for release over here soon but I'm shocked that I never heard anything about it before.I don't want to give away the plot for those who haven't seen it yet but one or two fight scenes don't even take place but you don't care as they're truly stunning.Obvious comparisons are going to made to Crouching Tiger cause its a big budget Chinese film with loads of wire work and of course the music which was composed by the same composer.
However I don't think its a better film than Crouching Tiger like some people
did cause its a little slow and the ending was a bit predictable. Still the most visionally stunning film I have seen this year.

elvis2002

Chinese people dont like Crouching tiger hidden dragon. If you like hero with until you see zhangyimou last film shimianmiafu , english title is house of flying daggers. I think its better than Hero by a long long way. Some of the fight scenes are in snow etc and they blow the water fight with tony leung and jet li out of the water.

Asian movies are so much better than the crap america has produced.

OfflerCrocGod

elvis2002 wrote:

If you like hero with until you see zhangyimou last film shimianmiafu , english title is house of flying daggers. I think its better than Hero by a long long way.

The reviews at imdb say otherwise I liked Hero and I'm happy to see it do well in Western markets but to just write off american films altogether is a bit foolish! Hero is good fun though and I liked the over the top use of colours :cool:

lodgepole

elvis2002 wrote:

Chinese people dont like Crouching tiger hidden dragon.

Fairly broad statement don't you think...

And even if it was true, what difference does it make? If Ang Lee hadn't made films in America people would be talking about how great Crouching Tiger is and how it's so much better than the crap that Hollywood makes.

ixoy

elvis2002 wrote:

Asian movies are so much better than the crap america has produced.

:rolleyes: Yeah, all American movies are crap and all Asian ones are great? Bit of a sweeping statement there don't ya think? Oh well *burns copies of the likes of 'Casablanca', 'The Shawshank Redemption', 'Raging Bull'* Best burn them since they're only American crap....

chewy

saw it ages on on divx problably be worth going to see it on large screen though.... prefferred it to crouching tiger...

nadir

yea, its a good film. Man i saw fong sai yuk (legend) on bbc , man it was a disgrace , that dub was terrible. Im still trying to get my hands on fong sai yuk 2 , some of the clips ive seen from it are absolutely amazing.

elvis2002

dddhouse.com has fong sai uyk 1 and 2 for about 6 euro each if you include postage.

PWEI

elvis2002 wrote:

Chinese people dont like Crouching tiger hidden dragon. If you like hero with until you see zhangyimou last film shimianmiafu , english title is house of flying daggers. I think its better than Hero by a long long way. Some of the fight scenes are in snow etc and they blow the water fight with tony leung and jet li out of the water.

Asian movies are so much better than the crap america has produced.

I couldn't care less if Chinese people like Crouching Tiger or not,I still enjoy
watching it every few months.Where did you get your hands on "house of flying daggers?" I couldn't find it on dddhouse.com

monkeyfudge

nadir wrote:

yea, its a good film. Man i saw fong sai yuk (legend) on bbc , man it was a disgrace , that dub was terrible. Im still trying to get my hands on fong sai yuk 2 , some of the clips ive seen from it are absolutely amazing.

I was very dissapointed by Fong Sai Yuk 2. I think they kind of over used the mother character in the second film, and she's just not as funny as she was in the first one.

It's a good few years since I saw it, but I seem to remember it having a pretty lousy final battle as well.

Loved the first one though.. I must get it on DVD...

nadir

monkeyfudge wrote:

I was very dissapointed by Fong Sai Yuk 2. I think they kind of over used the mother character in the second film, and she's just not as funny as she was in the first one.

It's a good few years since I saw it, but I seem to remember it having a pretty lousy final battle as well.

Loved the first one though.. I must get it on DVD...

pity, i saw a clip of one of the fight scens of fong say yuk 2 , the one where the is wearing about 20 swords. Looked so cool, i was really looking forward to it.

PWEI

For any of ye who want to see Hero on the big screen,its on in the IFI tonight. And for those of you that haven't seen it,go see it.

Agent Orange

No sign of Hero in any cinema today... what's the story? Has the release been pushed back?

ixoy

Agent Orange wrote:

No sign of Hero in any cinema today... what's the story? Has the release been pushed back?

Yup - to Novermber! :mad:
Apparently the distributors felt there was too many new movies coming out (five in the UGC today for example) and that 'Hero' would get swamped under so they pushed it back. This was before its US release. I got told this by a friend of mine who works in the trade so I'm assuming it's pretty reliable.

Ph3n0m

http://www.iftn.ie/diary/films.cfm - fairly accurate release dates, except for Hero - hasnt been updated recently

herobear

ixoy wrote:

Yup - to Novermber! :mad:
Apparently the distributors felt there was too many new movies coming out (five in the UGC today for example) and that 'Hero' would get swamped under so they pushed it back. This was before its US release. I got told this by a friend of mine who works in the trade so I'm assuming it's pretty reliable.

i hate when that happens, foreign films get pushed back(or go straight to video) while hollywood films always get released grrrr.
this'll probably mean that 2046 and house of flying daggers will be pushed back also.
im so glad i saw Hero in the IFI last night , was a complete bookout

MisterAnarchy

I thought Hero was rubbish.
All style but no substance much like Crouching Tiger.
I admit it looked beautiful but the plot was threadbare and there was very little dialogue.
The fight scenes were crazy ,people flying around ,nonsense.
They should try and get a decent script next time.

weemcd

ixoy wrote:

:rolleyes: Yeah, all American movies are crap and all Asian ones are great? Bit of a sweeping statement there don't ya think? Oh well *burns copies of the likes of 'Casablanca', 'The Shawshank Redemption', 'Raging Bull'* Best burn them since they're only American crap....

Bingo, you hit the nail on the head right there, why not throw out goodfellas, resevoir dogs, some vietnam war films and jurrasic park?

Boro

monkeyfudge wrote:

I was very dissapointed by Fong Sai Yuk 2. I think they kind of over used the mother character in the second film, and she's just not as funny as she was in the first one.

It's a good few years since I saw it, but I seem to remember it having a pretty lousy final battle as well.

Loved the first one though.. I must get it on DVD...

The final fight scene in FSY2 is fantastic i thought anyway - the whole i cannot watch myself fight my brothers bit is just a great lead up to it. I hated the way the americanised versions (as opposed to the subtitled ones) ruined the dialogue and the feel of both movies. Both number along my favourite martial arts movies.

Speaking of which, i watched Hero tonight (the subtitled one) and i was pretty impressed. A lot more interesting than CTHD which i found quite boring during long stretches, despite the great cinematography and fight scenes. A 9/10 movie compared to CTHD's 8/10. Well worth watching. Loved the way they approached the story with the multiple viewpoints.

elvis2002

PWEI wrote:

IWhere did you get your hands on "house of flying daggers?" I couldn't find it on dddhouse.com

My girlfriend is chinese, her ma sent it over. Its not out officially on dvd to november I think or maybe october. I forget. Its a good movie, but after rewatching it a number of times it doesnt stand up like hero. I thought it was a better movie at first but now I think hero is still the king.

NeoSlicerZ

Any other asian movies that you guys would recommend?

Makaveli

This thread has a load of recommendations.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=185257

herobear

just after watching a programme hosted by Quentin Tarantino and Jet Li, detailing their favourite martial art fight sequences, and with a preview of Hero too.
made me really want to check out some films they were talking about

calex71

this is a strange film, not the film itself but the way its been released, i mean its 2 years old, bought the dvd online in july(directors cut) after seeing a divx of it and will gladly pay again to see this on a big screen i agree with someone who same the end was predictable but the image of the gate with all the arrows stuck in it was stunning, who cares if this has been done before or wheather or not crouching tiger is better, the simple fact is that this is a 1st rate piece of cinema

Edit: on doing a search for the dvd it turns out that its now listed as not released yet on alot of the bigger sites, the standard edition that is , no mention of the directors cut, yet it was freely available till they decided to release in cinemas in the us and over here, lmao thats just shameless isnt it

Agent Orange

calex71 wrote:

who cares if this has been done before or wheather or not crouching tiger is better

I can't believe *anyone* would think Crouching Tiger was better. Hero makes it look like the work of an amateur. Whereas the wire work in Crouching Tiger was distractingly noticeably and amateur looking, in Hero it's graceful and awe-inspiring.

Hero empties its bowels on Crouching Tiger (from a great height aswell).

nadir

It's a really cool film alright, but if we are going to do some serious picking, id say titles like Iron Monkey, The Shaolin Temple .etc are better

TerrorFirmer

I had to drag this thread up to say I saw Hero today, was really looking forward to it, and to be honest, after seeing it I thought it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life, B-Movies included.

I don't know why people love this "guy obviously wearing a wire" over the top float-around-the-screen stuff so much, but to me its laughable and as such I thought the film, despite one or two well done fight scenes, was a turd of epic porportions. I am not a fan of Crouching Tiger, namely for the overuse of wires and the style in which they were used, but that said I wouldn't let it dictate my opinion of the film overall if the other areas were good, but in comparison to this its a ten times better film in any case...in my opinion of course.

If it were not for the fact that I was watching it with someone else (who also thought it was hideous and is also a big fan of both martial arts and asian cinema in general) I would have switched it off after the first half hour.

Rented this after seeing Fearless recently, which I lthought was very good, and was sadly expecting something similar, but alas, really not to be!!

2/10, and thats being generous in my opinion.

misteranarchy wrote:

I admit it looked beautiful but the plot was threadbare and there was very little dialogue.
The fight scenes were crazy ,people flying around ,nonsense.

edit: this sums it up pretty well for me, taken from further down the thread.

fade2black

It was pretty cack actually.

Necronomicon

I too hate overuse of wire-work. I thought Hero was a bit up its own ass, some scenes were OTT.

Crucifix

I liked Hero because it was a little bit cheesy, but those obvious wire bits get me too. You're really engrossed in a great fight, then BAM! Power rangers.

Rhyme

Crucifix wrote:

I liked Hero because it was a little bit cheesy, but those obvious wire bits get me too. You're really engrossed in a great fight, then BAM! Power rangers.

True, the best fight in my opinion was the one with the spear guy at the start, 'Sky' or something as it didnt have as much craziness as some of the other bits eg:

deflecting a gagillion arrows with your sleeves

. Too much ridiculous stuff but enjoyable nonetheless. I liked House of Flying Daggers better.

stevenmu

Loved this film (and HOFD and CTHD). I don't know if they are actually based on on some chinese legend or not, but that's the sense they convey. They're not meant to be in any way realistic or historically accurate. They are mythical tales of larger than life heroes and their epic adventures. It's not really fair to compare them to run of the mill martial arts movies, they're more fantasy movies, you really need to be able to suspend disbelief for a while to enjoy them and immerse yourself in the world they portray.

TerrorFirmer

Can anyone tell me how HOFD compares to Hero? Don't want to go out and rent it to discover its the same thing all over again....

Dont be at yourself

If you dont like Hero, it's probably safe to say you wont like House Of Flying Daggers. The story perhaps has more to it than Hero, but the fight-scenes are similarly wire-worktastic.

Personally, the scene in the bamboo forest alone makes it worth watching.

stevenmu

HavoK wrote:

Can anyone tell me how HOFD compares to Hero? Don't want to go out and rent it to discover its the same thing all over again....

Like NekkidBibleMan says, it's basically more of the same again, wire work, flapping sleeves and flying daggers that can turn corners, do loop-de-loops and attack 4 people people. Given the reasons you didn't like Hero, you almost certainly won't like this, altough some people seem to not like these these films at first but then warm to them, so if you do watch it you might suddenly find yourself 'getting it'.

Doomspell

But thats the whole point of these films!!

Agent Orange

The fight sequences were meant to be stylised - it wasn't meant to be a super realistic depiction of combat. The film looked absolutely incredible and the wire work was fine, unlike Crouching Tiger where they're getting dragged all over the place.

I suggest you cultured cinema lovers who didn't like Hero try and wrap your braincell around this film instead. It doesn't have any exquisitely composed shots or astounding production design, but it does have two black men pretending to be white women. HILARIOUS!

TerrorFirmer

Agent Orange wrote:

I suggest you cultured cinema lovers who didn't like Hero try and wrap your braincell around this film instead. It doesn't have any exquisitely composed shots or astounding production design, but it does have two black men pretending to be white women. HILARIOUS!

Insulting somebody because they happen to dislike a particular movie is pretty low, don't you think? Is there any particular reason you feel warrants it?

Anyway, back onto topic - I don't mind if HOFD has the wires, I can bare that if the rest of the movie is up to scratch. It wasn't solely the wire work/bizarre fights in Hero that annoyed me, it was also largely due to what I thought was a really overly basic not to mention boring story line. It probably didn't help that the only option I had was dubbing rather then original audio with subs.

Wires and craziness aside, does HOFD have a good, structured storyline? I'd be more then willing to give it a go if so...

stevenmu

HavoK wrote:

Wires and craziness aside, does HOFD have a good, structured storyline? I'd be more then willing to give it a go if so...

It's certainly a lot closer to a traditional story line. They start off working towards a goal, encounter a few obstacles, there's a love interest, and a couple of plot twists along the way.