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HERO (2002) - Full Watch Along (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-10 23:18:31
Imported:
2026-06
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Join me for the start of my journey into martial arts films with Hero! This was such an incredible surprise. I had no idea what to expect and was just blown away by it’s beauty… reaction highlights on YouTube Monday August 18th! 🖤

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HERO (2002) - Full Watch Along

Hero (Chinese: 英雄; pinyin: Yīngxióng) is a 2002 wuxia martial arts film directed, co-written, and produced by Zhang Yimou, and starring Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Donnie Yen and Chen Daoming. The cinematography was by Christopher Doyle, and the musical score composed by Tan Dun. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 75th Academy Awards. The historical background of the film refers to the Warring States Period in ancient China, when China was divided into seven states. In 227–221 BC, the Qin state was about to unify the other six states, assassins from the six states were sent to assassinate the king of Qin. One of the most famous incidents was Jing Ke's attempted assassination of the King of Qin.

Comments

Nick Christensen

That was fun watching your introduction to wuxia films. Its a gorgeous film if you can get past a bit of propaganda. Great cast too, and Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung in particularly gave great performances. Not quite my favorite in the genre (that would be Crouching Tiger, which is actually not as highly regarded as this in China, where it was widely considered just another wuxia film and one that was hard for them to understand with actors with various dialects, and most of the actors have at least one film I like more (Tony Leung had Infernal Affairs, Jet Li had Fearless, Donnie Yen had Ip Man, and Zhang Ziyi was in Crouching Tiger. Still a fun watch though I've seen it a lot.

Yoshio

You were right on target in your Matrix reference. The Wachowski's hired a famous kung fu choreographer named Yuen Woo-ping who also specializes in "wire-fu." He also did Crouching Tiger and Kill Bill. The way I look at the flying is not that it defies physics, but manipulates physics via the spirit. There is a lot of emphasis in kung fu movies on "chi" or "qi" (Japanese is "ki" which you might have learned in karate) which is the spiritual life force. The idea is that you practice to a point that you are so spiritual that you can manipulate the elements. This concept is in Avatar: The Last Airbender for example. But it's considered a real aspect in our world and is the basis of Tai Chi. Bruce Lee is thought to have been very strong in his chi and able to perform acts that should have been physically impossible. And George Lucas has said he was inspired by the concept of chi in his creation of the force.