A Man Called Hero

Its really hard to write a review for this kind of film. On the one hand AMCH wants to be a credible story led film. OK, So what about the story. Well it is a strange affair. On the one hand, the hardship the Chinese felt, the bad guy and his ninja squad and a lot of the quest to find hero were pretty good. But on the other hand too many loose ends are left and some things seem to happen for no reason. What's with the weird gay subplot with hero's best friend? What's up with shadow? Why didn't he try and kick invincible's ass, instead of letting 'boss' get his handed to him (I know they were played by the same person, but, hey)? And what the hell happened to Hero's daughter (I accept that it sort of implies that's his latest quest, to find her, but they could have let us know. And why did he blow up the one man who knew where she might be?)?

As a martial arts film it is a strange beast. The only actual bit of traditional kung fu is when hero is showing off his talents to his prospective teacher. The rest is mostly wire work and hardcore CGI, which, for the most part, is pretty good. Shadow zips around, the Ninjas all have captain planet style powers and the face off between Pride and Invincible is awesome. But there just are not enough moments like these. I suppose ructions all the time would take away from what the director is trying to achieve (a man who hates fighting and death), but just one or two more or the existing ones eked out a bit would have been nice, if only to break up the slightly laborious pace.

On the whole, though, it is hard not to like AMCH. The sets are fantastic. The costumes and cast are all uniformly good and the cinematography is superb. The plot holes are forgivable and if you want to see non-stop kung fu action, go rent an old Shaw Brothers flick. The good far outweighs the bad, as far as I'm concerned and the two-disk set is a proud edition to my DVD collection. Its far too easy to cuss up this film, simply because the typical western audience for a martial arts movie don't seem to be ready to try something different. Shaaaame

Based on a Hong Kong comic book, 'A man called Hero' details the cursed life of a man who gains mastery of a martial art after his Master dies in a duel with the movie's central villain. The majority of the film deals with Hero's past as his son and his best friend travel to America in search of him. Along the way, they meet up with Hero's senior who, himself, is in search of Hero. The other slant to the story revolves around the issue of Chinese immigrants and the lives which they led when they journeyed to America in search of gold, only to find slavery. The slave masters unite with the villains and out of this struggle, Hero appears to save the Chinese immigrants from being annhilated. The final battle between Hero and Invincible, the villain who duelled with Hero's Master before his death, thus takes place.

'A Man called Hero' is the second film that utilises the same computer-generated effects in 'Storm Riders' (which was another movie adapted from a comic book). There are less effects in this feature which probably means a lower budget commitment. Instead, the film dwells a lot on hero's past and how he came to becoming a self-exile. The acting is not particularly great IMHO with Ekin Cheng playing a mediocre hero. I felt that an actor who could display a better sense of emotion should've been casted for the role of Hero but I guess that Ekin Cheng was selected for his popularity. Moreover, the female lead is played by xxx xxx who was Ekin's sweetheart in 'Storm Riders'. I'm not quite sure as to the story's focus on the subject of racism. It's quite normal for a Hong Kong film to dwell on the history of America's Chinese immigrants in the early part of the last century, but this film goes far deeper into the darkness of that era, and even involves the Ku Klux Klan. By the way, Yuen Biao makes an appearance as the innkeeper whilst Shu Qi (popular Taiwanese actress) plays a villainess who falls for Hero after he spares her life.

This film is the highly anticipated movie by the same production team that brought us the excellent "StormRiders". Again, based on a long running Hong Kong comic, I had high expectations. The story is based in the early part of the century and is basically about the title role's (played by Ekin Cheng - Wind from the Storm Riders) reconciliation with his son played by another HK canto-pop teen idol. However, it is in the story that the film is horribly let down. This is not helped by the continuous use of the flashback to fill in the gaps - the film loses it's structure. This may be due to the amount of story from the comics that has to be crammed into an hour and a half covering over 20 years. The special effects are again excellent as you would expect, although the statute of liberty finale is slightly overdone. Definitely not in the "StormRiders" class but enough loose ends to suggest a sequel. Still, enjoyable but overall it did not live up to expectations.

Like most of the people I expected a wild action packed special effects loaded movie, well it isn't. But I'm not disappointed like all the others who wrote a comment here. It has more story than the average Hong Kong movie and the acting is also of a high standard. I agree that it could use some more action scenes, but the few action scenes look totally great! I don't know if it is historically correct (I don't think so) but what movies are?

If you want to see a good Hong Kong movie without the cheesy humor most of them have but with great acting and a nice story then give this one a try. It's not for all you kung fu action freaks although I think I'm one myself:)

If you reside in the real world, then this movie will strike you as naive, crude, and bigoted. Credit should be given for the attempt to set the movie outside of China, but the snarky Europeans hired to play Americans, a bunch of undersized frenchmen no doubt ;'), and the heavy handed evil Americans routine, departs from realism pretty quickly.

Halfway through, the plot mutates into the martial-arts as magic universe, and though a lot of work is put into CGI effects, there is nothing here for anyone who hasn't been living in a cave for the last decade to write home about.

We also get a dose of infantile romantic complications that would embarrass Aaron Spelling, some really cheesy music, and generally lame melodramatic scenes.

My favorite, an inexplicable fastcut sequence from several angles of Hero standing in a burning building holding Jade as she dies, the music tracks dramatically with the cuts, is he trapped? ...will he die? Nope he just walks out a second later. What the...?

The plot tumbles on with a Ninja vs Chinese subplot, and then for some reason climaxes with a Chinese revolt against the 'Racist men fom the Klu Klux Klan' who run a mine where Chinese workers are oppressed. Someone's been carping their history from 'The Peoples History of the US' it seems.

If I had to classify this movie I'd use Sword and Sorcery with too much dialogue and dialectic.