In the period of history when ancient China is divided into 7
large states and other small states, Wu Ming arrives at the palace to meet the
King of Qin, and is rewarded for killing 3 well-known assassins who have
attempted to kill the king of Qin, Chang Kong, Fei Xue and Can Jian. Wu Ming
displays the assassins’ weapons and tells the King how he killed the assassins.
Wu Ming recalls when Chang Kong was killed, and to meet Fei
Xue and Can Jian in a school in Zhao, where he pitted them against each other
until Can Jian was killed, and Fei Xue was killed by Wu Ming in the military camp
of Qin. As the tales concludes, the king expresses disbelief and accuses Wu
Ming of staging the duels with the assassins, who surrendered their lives to
allow him to gain the king’s trust and take the king’s live.
Wu Ming admits that he is a native of the Zhao state, he
also confesses that he defeated Chang Kong without killing him and asked Fei
Xue and Can Jian to cooperate by faking a duel as well. Sword has waited for Wu
Ming on his way to Qin after his false duel with Fei Xue. He told Wu Ming that
the only way to achieve peace was to unite the states under a common dynasty,
namely that of Qin, which alone had the ability to do so, thus revealing why
Can Jian gave up his earlier assassination attempt.
The King describes the ideal warrior, who, paradoxically,
should have no desire to kill. When Wu Ming realizes the wisdom of Can Jian’s
words, he abandons his mission and spares the King. Urged by the court, the
King reluctantly executes Wu Ming in the palace.
The statement of this movie is to tell about the importance
of peace in the world. In the story, when Can Jian is trying to persuade Wu
Ming, he tells Wu Ming two words, which are “tian xia”. This literally means “all under heaven”, and is a phrase
to mean “the World”. In Cause: The Birth of Hero – a documentary on the making
of Hero – Zhang Yimou mentions that he hopes the film will have contemporary
relevance, and that, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, which took
place just before the movie was filmed, the themes of universal brotherhood and
“peace under heaven” may indeed be interpreted more globally, and taken to
refer to peace in the world.
One of the messages of the movie is about nationalisme as
well. The assassins are cooperating with Wu Ming in order to allow him to
approach to the King for assassination, which is to protect their countries,
from being destroyed by the Qin, which is trying to unite the world under the
common dynasty.
One of the main features of the movie is that there are only
fives colours for the characters in the story, which are blue, green, red,
black and white. The director, Zhang Yimou used different colours to represent
each story, red represents jealousy, blue represents romance, green represents
memory, black represents mystery, white represents the real world. This film
differs from the other ancient kungfu film from the aspects of the way the
story is told. Zhang hopes to enables the audiences to watch the film in a more
ordered manner by using different colours for different stories. The audiences
can easily differentiate the characters and understand the story.
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