Published by Anonymous on 8/03/2004 10:08:00 AM
Pointy Sticks! ^_^
American martial arts fans have waited long enough for Hero. Now director Zhang Yimou's 2002 epic, the second-highest-grossing movie in Chinese history, is finally coming to the US. When it arrives stateside August 20, audiences will get to see Jet Li - whose kung fu flicks made him a Hong Kong megastar - show his mettle in China's other leading martial arts film genre: wuxia.
Based on the mythical exploits of early swordsmen, wuxia has been a part of Asian cinema since the silent era, but most Westerners got their first taste from Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Zhang's picture is much truer to the tradition. Set in the third century BC, when the king of Qin was waging a brutal campaign to become China's first emperor, Hero presents Li as a classic wuxia figure, a lone warrior who eliminates a trio of assassins to secure an audience with the king. As he sits before the future emperor, his story is told and retold in dazzling flashes of swordplay - bravura, gravity-defying displays that turn on such exquisite details as the flight path of a single drop of water.
"Wuxia is actually a spirit, a philosophy," Zhang told Wired on his way home from Cannes, where he premiered his second wuxia picture, House of Flying Daggers, a medieval actioner expected to hit US theaters later this year. "A martial arts person is willing to sacrifice his life to help somebody, but the best fighter never kills. The theme of wuxia is to use your heart to change people. In this, I believe, are the roots of China."
American martial arts fans have waited long enough for Hero. Now director Zhang Yimou's 2002 epic, the second-highest-grossing movie in Chinese history, is finally coming to the US. When it arrives stateside August 20, audiences will get to see Jet Li - whose kung fu flicks made him a Hong Kong megastar - show his mettle in China's other leading martial arts film genre: wuxia.
Based on the mythical exploits of early swordsmen, wuxia has been a part of Asian cinema since the silent era, but most Westerners got their first taste from Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Zhang's picture is much truer to the tradition. Set in the third century BC, when the king of Qin was waging a brutal campaign to become China's first emperor, Hero presents Li as a classic wuxia figure, a lone warrior who eliminates a trio of assassins to secure an audience with the king. As he sits before the future emperor, his story is told and retold in dazzling flashes of swordplay - bravura, gravity-defying displays that turn on such exquisite details as the flight path of a single drop of water.
"Wuxia is actually a spirit, a philosophy," Zhang told Wired on his way home from Cannes, where he premiered his second wuxia picture, House of Flying Daggers, a medieval actioner expected to hit US theaters later this year. "A martial arts person is willing to sacrifice his life to help somebody, but the best fighter never kills. The theme of wuxia is to use your heart to change people. In this, I believe, are the roots of China."