Film is - obviously - a visual medium, but if I had to pick one piece of Cinema that exemplifies that like only few other movies do, it would be HERO. The film is all images, all movement, all colors; it's all show - not just tell, and it demonstrates just what the art of visual storytelling encompasses when a maverick director such as Yimou Zhang does it at the peak of his game. Here he paints with celluloid like a master painter would with a brush, and the result is a movie of such breathtaking beauty the audience is often simply left in stunned awe. There are stories within stories in HERO, each with a different narrator and a slightly different perspective, and each storyline has its own color palette until all all the stories merge into one epic, multicolored tale. A masterpiece of Cinema, plain and simple, and one of the most outstanding films of the last 20 years.
P.S. (for new IMDb users): In case you don't know whether to trust this review or not, because you have no idea what my tastes in film are, just click on my username - gogoschka-1 - and you'll see a list what my 50 favorite movies are.
P.S. (for new IMDb users): In case you don't know whether to trust this review or not, because you have no idea what my tastes in film are, just click on my username - gogoschka-1 - and you'll see a list what my 50 favorite movies are.