OK. First off, I'd like to say that I was pleasantly suprised because ZiYi was in HERO more than I thought... She had even more screen time than she did in LEGEND OF ZU.
The DVD I have is the official R0 DVD-5 from Hong Kong. It will soon be available at HKFlix.com, but, I got it from a guy who just came back from HK and bought a few to sell on eBay. Yes, it is the official one with the "sticker".
The DVD's menu is in Chinese, so, its tough for me to navigate through the other features, but, all I needed to do to watch the flick was start the movie/DVD and scroll through the SUBTITLES with the subtitle button on the remote.
The transfer is awesome...beautiful! Its in 5.1 Dolby Digital so it not only looks awesome but sounds great! A nice aggressive surround sound mix (from the water drops, rain, horses, wind, sword-clanging and musical score...etc), all 5 speakers are utilized nicely.
I think the movie is worthy of its Oscar nomination for BEST FOREIGN PICTURE..no doubt!
Some music score scenes will make you think of CTHD's musical score. So, yes, the score is beautiful, but, some may say its copying the tone of CTHD's bamboo scene and night fight at times.
The movie: Basically, the KING of QIN wants to reign over all.. His soldiers have killed many... So, he's a wanted man. The story is presented to us in the form of flashbacks told by NAMELESS (Jet LI) to the KING of QIN on how he (Nameless) killed the three assains that were after the KING -and also- we see the opinion of the KING told to NAMELESS after the King's soldiers witness, or think that they witnessed the death of the three main assasins: SKY (Donnie Yen), FLYING SNOW (Maggie Cheung), and BROKEN SWORD (Tony Leung). The KING is always guarded, and, its not easy to get close to him. Anyone killing any of these three assasins, giving the KING peace of mind so he can sleep without having to sleep with one eye open, will be granted land, money, and a chance to meet and talk with the KING to tell their story. Of course, NAMELESS is the character that acheived this, but how? The distance he gets to converse with the KING (starting at 100 paces) is granted by the KING himself after listening to NAMELESS' story learning of how the assasins were killed (or died). That's the bulk of the flick.
The cinematography in the entire movie and flashbacks are stunning, with a visual flair enhanced by colors used for each story told (first greys...then reds...then yellows...blues...whites...and greens). I really liked the fight scenes. All were very creative. Especially all uses of water (drops, oceans, or puddles...etc). There's a scene toward the begining that had Nameless running in slow motion through water splashed up by his sword from a puddle to distract SKY that instantly made me know this was gonna be a good movie.
I dont want to spoil the movie, or suprise, because there is a slight twist closer to the end of the movie...and you learn about each character as you see each segmant of the flashback, so, it all falls into place nicely. Some basic themes in the movie are "love triangles", "jealousy", "honor", "revenge", "betrayal"..etc.
Now, this part is about ZiYi's character, MOON (this is a ZiYi forum after all). She appears as BROKEN SWORDS servant in every story (remeber, the flashbacks change as told by NAMELESS to the KING, The KING to NAMELESS, and BROKEN SWORD to NAMELESS). As soon as she appears (in the "red" flashback), she looks radiant!! I was psyched...like, "yes, ZiYi's BACK"! Ziyi's (MOON's) fight with Maggie (FLYING SNOW) in the "yellow" leaves is beautiful. It's this scene where the music was very "Crouching Tiger"-ish. Maybe that was done as a tribute to the movie that really launched ZiYi's career; Crouching Tiger, which she wouldnt have been cast in if it werent for ZiYi starring in Yimou's earlier film THE ROAD HOME...?
Anyway, she does have a sex scene with BROKEN SWORD (not graphic)...which leads to the "yellow" leaves fight scene I just mentioned. ZiYi has a total of two fight scenes. They're both good. She even has a little speech toward the end. I was very happy with her character, although she deserves a starring vehicle and could've easily played the lead female character FLYING SNOW.
