‘Hero’ stuns with action, vivid scenery

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In theaters

HERO, directed by Zhang Yimou, written by Li Feng and Wang Bin, 99 minutes, rated PG-13. In Chinese with English subtitles.

What grabs you in Zhang Yimou’s long-awaited, Academy Award-nominated “Hero” isn’t the story, which is structured like “Rashomon,” recalls “The Emperor and the Assassin,” and thus has a whiff of the familiar. What leaps off the screen is Christopher Doyle’s astonishing cinematography, the superlative action sequences, and the vivid colors of a world uniting just as it threatens to bust apart.

As in the popular “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” the more recent “Kill Bill” series, and the best films of the chopsocky genre, the action in “Hero,” which has been sitting on Miramax’s shelf for nearly two years, is something to behold – precise and weightless, a tumbling ballet of kicks, flips and whirls.

This is the most expensive movie in Chinese history and it shows, costing a reported $30 million to make. While that figure might seem low by Hollywood standards, consider that “Hero” benefits enormously from sets no studio could afford to buy or authentically create – the landscape and architecture of China, all of which serves as its stunning backdrop.

Set more than 2,000 years ago, the film follows the potential unseating of King of Qin (Chen Daoming), who is working tirelessly to unite China’s seven kingdoms under one rule – his own – so he can become China’s first-ever emperor.

Naturally, he has his share of detractors, particularly the three working overtime to assassinate him: Broken Sword (Tony Leung), Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung) and Long Sky (Donnie Yen). To kill them, the king has offered a formidable bounty, with Jet Li’s Nameless, a county sheriff, arriving early in the film to explain why he deserves it.

According to him, he has fought and murdered all of the king’s enemies, which he outlines to the king in a series of flashbacks.

Uncoiling in a sort of altered consciousness, the movie splinters time, weaving in and out of the past and the present as Nameless recounts his ascension as a master assassin. What he describes is passionate, daring and romantic, stories that might be true or a bald-faced lie. The king knows that Nameless could be there to kill him – so do we – but he’s nevertheless intrigued enough to allow Nameless to tell his tales and gradually step within 10 paces of him, which gives the film an edge that’s nicely sustained.

“Hero” has too many layers to generate the real heat it needed to be great, and its support of Qin, a tyrant, leaves a bad taste. Still, it does have moments that are visually great, such as a high-flying fight atop still waters, a blazing blast of swordplay amid a mass of swirling autumn leaves, a final scene of loss in a hail of arrows whose power is only matched by the plunge of an unexpected suicide.

Grade: B+

On video and DVD

TWISTED, directed by Philip Kaufman, written by Sarah Thorp, 96 minutes, rated R.

Philip Kaufman’s “Twisted” is another one of those glossy, eye-popping crime thrillers starring Ashley Judd as a strung-out woman living a life of peril.

This time out, Judd plays a character who isn’t just in danger, but who might, in fact, be the danger. She’s Jessica Shepard, a feisty policewoman recently turned homicide detective who has, shall we say, her share of problems.

Booze is one of them. Jess loves the drink, particularly wine, which she guzzles until her eyes roll back in her head, the room spins and she falls flat on the floor. Or on top of a man. You see, her other pastime is picking up smoky strangers in sleazy San Francisco bars and taking them home for rounds of aggressive sex, which she enjoys to the point of passing out.

Lately, when she recovers the next morning, she does so with the cold news that the previous evening’s trick has wound up dead, with a cigarette burn on the back of his hand and his face beaten to a pulp. Is she the murderer? Jess doesn’t know – she was too stoned to remember. Still, the movie strains to mount a mystery around that question, with Samuel L. Jackson, Andy Garcia and David Strathairn rounding out the dim corners.

As directed by Kaufman from a script by Sarah Thorp, “Twisted” is a train wreck, with poor Ashley Judd stuck in the caboose.

Initially, the scenes in which Judd transforms her cute, tart image into that of an alcohol-soaked tramp are grotesque fun, with Kaufman nearly creating a camp erotic thriller of note. But as the movie unfolds and the script becomes increasingly implausible, that note turns out to be D flat.

For instance, in spite of standing tall as the only suspect in each of the murders, Jess is inexplicably allowed to stay on the case, in spite of the rather sizable conflict of interest that creates. Kaufman and Thorp try to breeze over that beauty, having one character claim that Jess would lose her career if she weren’t allowed to stay on the case, and in the process, they somehow believe audiences will buy it.

They won’t.

Grade: D-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 Bangor and WCSH 6 Portland, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Agent Cody Banks 2 ? D

Along Came Polly ? D

Bad Santa ? B+

Barbershop 2: Back in Business ? B+

The Butterfly Effect ? F

Calendar Girls ? B+

Connie and Carla ? B

Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights ? D

Dogville ? B

Ella Enchanted ? B

Fog of War ? A

The Girl Next Door ? C+

Hellboy ? B

Hidalgo ? C

House of Sand and Fog ? B+

The Human Stain ? D

In America ? A-

Johnson Family Vacation ? D

Kill Bill Vol. 2 ? B

Laws of Attraction ? C-

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ? A-

Lost in Translation ? A

The Magdalene Sisters ? A-

Miracle ? B+

Monster? A

The Passion Of The Christ ? B+

Twisted ? D-