The Genuine Hero

Now most people are living in parts of the earth no longer capable of sprouting heroes, which many simply don't know how to do without, just as in history. Those who need heroes so desperately have to turn to football geniuses, basketball giants, tennis champions, sparkling movie stars, phenomenal pop music performers, etc. for substitution, and place them in their niches for heroic idols. They worship and feel good.

I saw the Zhang Yimou film 'Hero' on TV. Though it must have been re-aired several times before, this was the first time I viewed it, many years after its release; thanks to my partially working defective Chinese made recorder with a world famous brand name.

The film, with a very simple plot and dialogue, was obviously aimed for the Global audiences, as well as the huge Chinese one, which were similarly so used to cinematographic exaggeration of individual physical capability, to an extent of no limit. Many believe that watching movies with such visual excitement can relieve the stress and strain of everyday city life. I have never been convinced.

People who like this sort of movie, however, may accept such extreme fictitiousness better than that found in the cartoon, as the images captured with every single frame are from real movie stars created by God, and they could be perfect compared to animated figures made up by humans.

'Hero' depicts an assassin from the Kingdom of Zhao, who wants to sacrifice his own life on killing the King of the Kingdom of Qin, who has invaded Zhao. Yet he eventually gives up at the moment he is convinced the realization of the King's military ambitions benefits 'All Land under Heaven (天下)'. He spares the King. In consequence he enjoys a glorious death and a generous burial.

He calls himself Nameless and disguises as a Qin subject. He tracks down the King's assassins and kills them in duels so as to seek for the King's trust and reward of proximity.

In a demonstration to the assassins he challenges to an open duel, his sword is so swift and powerful that its strokes loosen all the tied and piled up scrolls of bamboo slips and collapse all the shelves on which they are stored, along the walls of a library 20 paces by 20 paces, in just no more than half of a second. This implies that given a 10-pace proximity, the King is doomed while still talking, even totally aware of his fate, with a ready sword in hand and a suit of battle armour covering the whole body.

At the end of this series of countless sword strokes that the camera mechanism fails to capture, and thus the audience is not able to see, the shining blade however, still manages to smoothly rest the falling bowl, having sprung up with the swordsman's gentle stamp on the floor at the beginning of the split second, and prevent it from a hard landing under the law of gravity. Yet not a single drop of water is spilled. The peak of each curve of velocity of each of this series of countless smoothly coordinated body movements and sword strokes must be at least a hundred times faster than the speediest fighter jet at its ultimate capability of Mach 3.3. I wonder how the actor Jet Li does it, with his name bearing no more than just one single JET.

Martial art of this extremely extravagant kind seen on the screen is invented solely for the purpose of intoxicating those minds which are very much tired of reasoning, instead of convincing those which are not. This is just one way of entertaining people who subconsciously want to evade reality, and also those whose mind is in a state similar to 'neoteny'.

In reality we don't have anything near this species of imaginary swordsman, which obeys no law of physics and physiology. Yet with the help of technology it can readily be created out of nothing in a moviemaker's mind which is sensually mature but sensibly never, in this moviemaking industry which burns a big lot of money, contributing much to environmental damages and global warming.

We only have in history something like that stupid and clumsy Jing Ke of Wei. This real assassin was sent by the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Yan, who factually failed to stab this very King of Qin with a humble dagger wrapped with a map presented to His Majesty, together with the head of a Qin general who had fled Qin.

Not only Jing Ke failed, his friend Gao Jianli who wanted to revenge him also failed, and perhaps numerous other assassins failed too. Despite all those attempts, the King survived to become the First Emperor of 'All Land under Heaven'. He had enjoyed his tyranny for a little more than a decade, before he died probably of mercury poisoning, by taking pills from alchemists. Four years after his death, in 206 BCE, the freshly founded Qin Empire was altogether history. 'All Land under Heaven' came into the possession of Liu Bang the Han leader, leaving the name Qin (Chin) for the western civilization to derive its own names for China from.

The film remedies its simplicity of plot by abandoning the normal straight story telling way of adopting third person selective omniscientism. It instead employs Akira Kurosawa's 'Rashomon' model of individual personae's subjectivism, for the swordsman to tell his versions and lies, and the King his suppositions, through an unlikely conversation between the two.

Sophisticated cinematography with surrealistic scenery and different colour dominations creates a sense of beauty that the viewers can only come back to this type of motion pictures for more.

The title 'Hero' gives an ambiguity. It could either refer to the assassin or the King. The Chinese title, which could be either singular or plural, and is even more ambiguous, keeps it a bit of fun for the audience to decide by themselves. But few come for entertainment would bother to do so, I guess.

The film's depicting the King's having this eerie power, which alters the mind of the unstoppable and most determined assassin, with just a brief dialogue, is not really convincing. The assassin gives up his long fixed goal at the last odd moment, simply because all of a sudden he seems to realize that 'All Land under Heaven' certainly will benefit from being ruled by a king like this singular one.

With the most implausible conversation, the film shows quite so clearly the producer & director Zhang Yimou's intention to advocate his hero, the Genuine Hero, the King of Qin.

It is good enough for the assassin to accept the King as the Genuine Hero capable of exterminating the six kingdoms in order to end their endless warring against each other. This makes historical sense. And there is a significant additional idea: by involving calligraphy in his plot, the assassin finds a point to appreciate the King's decision to eliminate redundant variants of characters circulating across the kingdoms, which cause much trouble in writing and communication. He tells the King he has asked for the calligraphy of one word, namely 'sword', which he presents to the King as a gift, but there are several variants to be chosen from.

According to history, the King of Qin declared himself the First Emperor after having 'unified' all the warring kingdoms within 'All Land under Heaven'. Then he proceeded to what he wanted to do next, ruthlessly. In accordance with all that bit of history we know, he acted as a total tyrant. Unless evidence telling otherwise is excavated, people still perceive one of the most tyrannous rulers in Chinese history.

A ruler's ruthlessness is not to be justified or cancelled out by his achievements through ruthless ruling.

After having 'unified' the warring kingdoms, the First Emperor eliminated the redundant variants of characters; standardized the axle length of carts and carriages, the currency, and also the units of measurements, etc. He dug the Divine Canal and built the Great Wall, by applying servitude upon his subjects of course. But all these do not necessarily imply that his way of tyranny is historically or politically CORRECT, even with the context in that particular stage of civilization taken into consideration.

Besides cruel torturing and severe punishments as a routine of ruling, this tyrant had some 460 Confucian scholars buried alive, and most existing books burnt. He banned all schools of thought, except the Legalist School, which under his manipulation was just a means of ruthless ruling.

The film's applying the term hero is quite so obvious an analogy to glorifying the then King. If the term is meant for the assassin, the King is even glorified more.

The film's portrayal of the King of Qin as the Genuine Hero is not the least subtly conveyed. I perceive something like a parable in there. As the producer and director, Zhang Yimou must have implied ulterior meanings for making up such a historical fantasy, depicting the King as a positive persona capable of moving two deadliest and most determined assassins.

I would say, hero or not, this King was no doubt a GREAT one. To some who have inherited a worshipping gene but lack a faith, he just has to be called perfect, even if he was not really GLORIOUS.