Hero · reception & legacy
2002 · Zhang Yimou
How Hero has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A blockbuster in China and an Oscar nominee, it then sat on Miramax's shelf for nearly two years before its 2004 US release — where it stunned everyone by topping the American box office two weekends running, almost unheard of for a subtitled film. Once dogged by charges that its politics soured the spectacle, it's now firmly canonised as one of the most beautiful films of the 2000s.
What's debated
The forever-debate: is the ending's message of unity a profound meditation or state-friendly apologia for authoritarianism — can you love the images and distrust the ideology?
Its footprint
Its colour-coded chapters — the red gingko-leaf duel, the blue lake fight, the black rain of arrows — are among the most screenshot, gif'd, and 'cinema is art'-posted images on film Twitter and Letterboxd.
Where it stands
A permanent fixture on 'most beautiful films ever' lists and, with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the gateway wuxia film for a generation of Western cinephiles.