cla68

"Hero" is visually stunning and beautifully filmed. Unfortunately, the film represented, in my belief, an effort on the part of Communist China to justify the foreign policy they have pursued since the tragedy of the Communist take-over of that great country.

The justification that the mainland Chinese government uses for their invasions and occupations of Tibet and portions of India, Mongolia, and Vietnam, as well as their continued threats against Taiwan, is that all of these territories were historically part of a "unified," Chinese kingdom. The Chinese point to the earlier, "unified" Chinese dynasties to support their claim.

This movie attempts to show the 1st Dynasty, the Qim, in a positive light by arguing that it united China in "peace" and created the uniform writing system still used in China and other Asian countries today. The writing system claim may be true, but I personally doubt that the Qim emperor was really motivated by thoughts of "eternal peace under heaven" when he brutally conquered his neighboring Asiatic kingdoms. Also, I don't believe that a "unified" China that includes any territory or people that ever belonged to any of the Chinese dynasties, is necessarily the true "essence of the sword and calligraphy" as this movies states.

The victors do write the history books and that is what China is trying to do with this beautifully filmed movie.

"Lost Paradise" is beautifully filmed and the two lead actors do a great job. Unfortunately, the story line is very slow and boring. But I do like the ending even thought others I've talked to didn't. As you probably all know this movie inspired a hit serial drama on Japanese TV. However, I never got a chance to watch the TV show so I don't know if the TV show was better than the movie. If you're in Japan and this movie is shown on TV it's worth watching (which is where I saw it) but I probably wouldn't bother renting it.

I believe this movie was made by Beat Takeshi just before his famous suicide attempt. If true, the nihilism evident in this movie I think really indicates the tortured mindset that Takeshi must have had at the time. I've been led to understand that the real Yakuza pride themselves on restraint when it comes to violence. So the ruthless and wanton brutality shown by the "Yakuza" characters in this movie must surely originate solely in Takeshi's head and further leads me to believe that Takeshi was expressing his inner torment. Doesn't that indicate a huge ego on Takeshi's part to use a movie production and all that money to simply show how Takeshi happens to be feeling at that time in his life?