Asian Cinema

Hero (2002)
Controversial and beautiful, this film is a dream that you won’t soon forget. Starring Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi, with a stirring score by Tan Dun (who wrote the soundtrack for “Crouching Tiger & Hidden Dragon” (2000), featuring performances by Yo Yo Ma), this film represents technical and artistic excellence.

The story echoes Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashoman” (1950) in its multiple retellings of the same events, but the film stands alone so strongly to defy comparison. The martial arts choreography is breathtaking and graceful, performed by some of the finest martial artists in cinema today. Unexpectedly for a martial arts film, the strength of “Hero” is the writing and acting. Christopher Doyle’s cinematography is one of the peaks of his remarkable career, and the color pallate used in Zhang Yimou’s visual vocabulary delivers stunning impact.

When it was released in 2002, it was both the most expensive and highest-grossing film in Chinese motion picture history.

Directed by Zhang Yimou, this film marked his entry into Wuxia (Chinese martial arts) films, and was followed by “House of Flying Daggers” (2004) and “Curse of the Golden Flower” (2006), two visually engaging and emotionally disappointing films.


Shaolin Soccer (2004)
If you are going to see one movie by Stephen Chow, Hong Kong’s king of comedy, this is it.

Think “The Mighty Ducks” plus “Dragonball Z” (or maybe “Bad News Bears” plus “Enter the Dragon”), and you’ll get an idea of what to expect from this film.

Heartwarming, bizarre, hilarious, filled with very imaginative martial arts mixed with farfetched athletic action, this is the sort of stuff that flew through my mind while jumping on the trampoline as a kid.

Make sure to watch the extended version, which has an awesome and absurd dance sequence at Mei’s bread stand.


Want to hear about something you don’t see here? Send me an email!