I have just seen Hero. Count me wow-ed.

DUDE. I've squee'd about this movie when I first saw the trailer.

I am SO GOING TO VID THIS. yes. ( gratuitous vid thoughts. )

Anyways, I *loved* Hero. I loved the magical realism, the historical opera (complete with greek chorus!), the legend and the mythology of it, the Nameless Citizen and the Son of Heaven. The translations were fairly good even though it still missed the boat impact-wise, some nice wire-work, very neat motion and storytelling.

Speaking of which, ( I've a lot of thoughts about color in Hero, cut for spoilers )

God, I need icons.

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A historical note (that may help with understanding these wacky chinese historical operas): You know that sandy/hilly area that's shown a lot? That's the Yellow river basin aka. the cradle of Chinese culture aka. the birthplace of the soul of the country. (more info here)

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And! bangles has made a vid of the movie already, to E.S. Posthumus' Ebla! It's available [here], and makes great use of movement and reaction shots and is editied beautifully to the music and uses the colors *wonderfully*.

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[edit] More meta! (spoilers!)

guede_mazaka discusses the history of it in the comments here.

sockkpuppett discusses her reaction here.

Any more out there? ::pokeity::

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[edit2] Just got off the phone with my mom chatting and ravind about Hero. Pretty much went over everything discussed but she commented that apparently the movie caused a lot of controversy in China, because it gave a more sympathetic view of the book-burning emperor. Heh, that's POV for you.

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Happy Birthday aesc, aetherius, akioohtori, courtney_beth, and isiscolo! May your years be filled with color!