Hero
Miramax Films | Release Date: August 27, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
42
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
TimeRichard Corliss
Hero is the masterpiece. It employs unparalleled visual splendor to show why men must make war to secure the peace and how warriors may find their true destiny as lovers. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Swooningly beautiful, furious and thrilling, Zhang Yimou's Hero is an action movie for the ages. Read full review
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Breathtaking masterpiece. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
A walloping entertainment, brimming with the magic-realist action that made Ang Lee's somewhat similar "Couching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" a hit. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Led by director Zhang Yimou and dazzling cinematographer Christopher Doyle, the unseen Hero production team has made what just might be the most artistically sophisticated, most formally beautiful martial arts film the genre has seen. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderHank Sartin
The result is both thrilling and thoughtful. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Hero is a movie that lives up to all the nobility of its title, a gift to movie audiences who cherish the opportunity to be transported to a heretofore unimagined world and absorbed totally into what happens there. Read full review
100
SalonCharles Taylor
One of the most ravishing spectacles the movies have given us. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Hero is one of the most beautiful and involving films of the year. Read full review
100
EmpireAdam Smith
The comparisons are inevitable, so let's get them out of the way. Hero is a better film than "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." Read full review
100
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
It's a story about storytelling, with differing versions of events in which people die by the sword. Filled with Yimou's characteristic symbolism and zest for striking colors, it's a fictional account of the unification of China. Read full review
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Yimou plays his images like a visual symphony, and turns a potential costume pageant into an exhilarating national myth. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Perhaps the most beautiful film to hit Portland movie screens this year. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyTim Appelo
Hero is an epic, evocative of another epoch and of landscapes beyond time. It's overwhelming. And yet I miss the animating anger of Zhang's early masterworks, in which penniless young lovers were oppressed by impotent old men. Read full review
90
Washington PostDesson Thomson
You can feel the movie's sensibility and its powerful emotions in every aching image, which leaves you so caught up in these ancient times, you're loath to return to present-day normalcy. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
This is a leap into grandeur. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
A terrific piece of work. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
If you found "Crouching Tiger" a stunning bore, you probably won't fall under Hero's spell. But the rest of us, well, we'll be more than happy to savor every moment of its strange, ravishing beauty. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Its stars - especially the photogenic Leung and Cheung, fresh from Wong Kar Wai's jazzy romance In the Mood for Love - are wonderfully charismatic. And wonderfully athletic. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A visual poem of extraordinary beauty. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineEd Gonzalez
Hero is elliptical, primal, radically disjointed, and female-empowering. Everything a wu xia should be…and then som Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
I wish 'Hero's emotional heat rose more intensely -- more recklessly. There's something grand but distant and almost fetishistic about the operatic solemnity with which Zhang approaches the Rashomonic story of assassins attempting to kill a king. Read full review
80
Film ThreatG. Allen Johnson
Hero is not a CTHD clone; it’s a wonderful movie in its own right, staking its own territory as a dreamlike meditation on motivation and love. Read full review
80
VarietyDerek Elley
A dazzlingly lensed, highly stylized meditation on heroism. Read full review
80
SlateDavid Edelstein
If his (Zhang's) fight scenes don't fully intoxicate, though, his color and compositional rigor compensate for much. See Hero on the biggest screen you can find, and sit close enough for all that spiraling silk to tickle your nostril hairs. Read full review
80
Total FilmStaff (Not Credited)
Here is a film where every frame feels individually designed, with saturated colour and symmetry reflecting the texture and natural wonder of the environment. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
If there's a drawback, it's that the plot is trite. Hero is an exemplary example of visual poetry. The narrative is clearly of secondary concern. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
As gorgeous and contemplative as it is, Hero is a genre picture and needs to deliver the action goods. To that end, there are plenty of clever, lovingly choreographed sequences. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
It's full of passionate performances (except for the wooden Li), sizzling swordplay, bold and dazzling hues, and breathtaking landscapes. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
These people may be really, really dangerous, but they're also really, really polite. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
In the end, the spectacular martial-arts epic seems to signify nothing much more than its own beauty, as brilliant and ephemeral as a fireworks display. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleCarla Meyer
Not as profound as it is pretty, Hero nevertheless gives us something to ponder beyond Zhang's feat in mounting such a magnificent production. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The film never musters the intimate feel the gifted director brought to such early films as "Raise the Red Dragon" and "Ju Dou." You cheer his accomplishment in Hero without ever feeling close to it. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Brilliant in flashes, thinned out as a whole, the film seems ideal for the DVD revolution, where the greatest hits can be compiled at the touch of a remote. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Zhang Yimou's impeccably crafted, all-star martial arts extravaganza, is the essence of shallow gravitas. Read full review
70
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
Hero keeps its characters stiffly archetypal, like chess pieces sent whizzing through outrageous maneuvers. Unfortunately, this apparent choice of spectacle over intimacy put me at a slight remove. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Filled with meticulous set pieces, including a showdown between Snow and Moon set among swirls of golden-yellow leaves, Hero is easy on the eyes, but it's too segmented to gather much momentum and too art-directed to convey much urgency. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Though the specifics of the story may be unfamiliar to Western viewers, its broad outlines and underlying themes are universal, and Christopher Doyle's ravishing cinematography transcends language. Read full review
70
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It's a brilliant movie, fluent, spectacular, breathtaking and basically, uh, wrong. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
So deliriously chockablock with high-flying, color-coordinated fight scenes that non-aficionados may find it all a bit bewildering--a gorgeous abstraction. It sure is gorgeous, though, and it has a dream cast Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoanne Kaufman
Rich in motion -- the very clothes of the characters seem under a choreographer's direction -- as well as imagery.
63
USA TodayMike Clark
A movie just good enough to keep nurturing rooting interest as you watch it. Read full review
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