Hero

At its cinema release, Hero didn't interest me in the slightest, so I gave it a miss. But a friend of mine raved about it so much that, as soon as it came to DVD, I decided to check it out.

I've never been the biggest fan of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. First of all, it's dull. No point scurrying around it. The only parts of it that arouse any interest in me are the fight sequences, and even those, while visually impressive, feel pointless and without any emotional heart. Hero suffers from the same problems. The plot is weak, the characters are one-dimensional and any scene that doesn't involve a sword will have you nodding off in no time.

The action is, at first, quite amazing. The duels are exceptionally shot, and each have their own visual flair. Sadly, there's no disgusing that they're all - the - same. Li, Leung and Zhang, all capable of great performances, are given nothing to do with their characters, and Yimou handles the repititive nature of the script with disappointingly little adeptness. Only Maggie Cheung stands out among the cast, as always.

So, three stars for the sheer beauty of it all, and for the first two or three fight sequences. But ultimately, this was an extreme disappointment for me.

*** out of 5.