Trailer
Plot summary
China is split into seven warring states, and only the King of Qin seems able to end the fighting by uniting them. Assassins from the rival states have tried repeatedly to kill him, among them Long Sky, Flying Snow and Broken Sword. Nameless, a prefect from a small province, comes to the Qin capital with their weapons and says he has killed all three. The king's guards allow no visitor within a hundred paces, but the news earns Nameless an audience at ten paces, where he is asked to tell how he did it. He describes a duel with Sky in a gaming house, then a stay in the besieged city of Zhao, where he met the two lovers and commissioned a calligraphy scroll.
Cast
- Ma Wen Huaas Head Eunuch
- Xu Kuang Huaas Pianist
- Xia Binas Qin Guard #4
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Hero (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Hero became the first Chinese-language movie to top the American box office, holding the top spot for two consecutive weeks.
- Miramax, which owned the American distribution rights, delayed Hero's US release for nearly two years until Quentin Tarantino convinced it to open the film in American theaters.
- Cinematographer Christopher Doyle switched from Fuji film, used for most of the shoot, to Kodak for the red-dominated sequence because it gave "a much more saturated solid red"; for the green sequence, curtains were digitally color-corrected, green having been chosen only after the crew "ran out of colors".
- The film's central idea, Tiānxià, literally "under heaven" and meaning "the world", was rendered as "our land" for American cinemas, drawing criticism; the Belgian subtitles, two years earlier, had used "all under heaven".
- Jet Li's role as Nameless marked his first appearance in a film produced by mainland China, after his debut in Shaolin Temple.
- The film is set during the Warring States Period, when the Qin state stood on the brink of unifying the other six states and assassins were sent to kill the king of Qin; the most famous attempt was Jing Ke's.
