Message from coneill

[Anonymous]

I join my colleagues in highly recommending the movie "Hero" starring Jet Li. I liked it better than "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," in which I found the fighting sequences hard to believe. This story takes place two thousand years ago when China was split into seven feudal kingdoms. The tyrannical, shrewd and insightful King of Qin wants to unite the seven kingdoms into one powerful country, bringing peace and stability. He is, however, the target of three legendary assassins. This movie is a clever retelling of three different versions of the same assassination plot told from three points of view. The film is almost a cultural essay, somewhat like regional retellings of an ancient legend, rather than a Jet Li action flick. I could use this film with my studnts to reinforce several literary elements. There is an amazing metaphoric use of color in the film. The cinematography is awesome. The imagery is beautiful and of course I already mentioned the story is told from multiple points of view. The theme to discuss, in my opinion, would be " the pen is mightier than the sword". So, genre, figurative language techniques, and literary elements could all be viewed and discussed, as well as the historical references to the Chinese feudal kingdoms. If the film has a weakness at all, it would be that the ending could have been shortened. My students (middle school) might not be able to hang with it that long!