Hero

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look of joy on my GCSE Mandarin oral examiner’s face when he asked me if I liked Chinese cinema and I answered that my favourite film was 张艺谋的英雄. I hadn’t watched it then but that might have well been prophecy because having just finished it I think I can firmly say this is one of the greatest films of all time. I think the brilliance of 英雄 lies not in the colour or the wuxia action sequences or the scale or the metafictive reconstruction of events or even the fact that Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung are once again in love. Instead it lies in the film’s overt ability to fully convince you of the greatness and the significance of its subject matter. Every footstep, word, and swipe of the sword carries the weight of a nation.  Thoroughly brilliant.