Other techniques such as when archers shoot a bombardment of arrows, hundreds of them, at a calligraphy school in order to kill the assassin duo residing there. Another technique used is when the camera turns to the school, the audience sees the torrent of arrows bombarding and going through the calligraphy walls and hitting the students. It had a comical effect as the students kept on working as well as the teacher while the arrows kept on hitting them, only later after the barrage had stopped, the students hit would rise up and start working again.
A nice bit of comic relief. All the time the archers were launching arrows, they were chanting, as well as the music being dramatic. As the film neared its ending, Nameless was about to assassinate the King, only he had a change of heart, after remembering Broken Swords’ words, “Our Land”. The conclusion is that Nameless was executed as an assassin, but buried as a hero. That was the message being conveyed to the audience by the director.
My opinion of “Hero” is the emotional and violent storyline giving it the exhilarating and moving edge in attracting the audience into viewing the film. A mistake that many people miss during the first viewing of the film is that when the Chin Army archers are shooting arrows at the school, the camera goes to a close-shot of the teacher with arrows flying into the wall behind him, after Nameless and Flying Snow fend off he arrows, the camera goes back into a close-shot of the teacher, only to see that many of the arrows had disappeared.
My recommendation is to keep everything in the set the same, as it was before. To simply refer to Hero as a martial arts film would be to strip it to its most elemental state. It would not convey the film’s stunning visual beauty, its balletic grace or philosophical weight. As befits a film dealing with codes of behavior and honour in ancient China, Hero is a spacious work of silent potency, filled with an imperious dignity bestowed on it by highly acclaimed director Zhang Zimou.
