Yimou Zhang's "Hero", a bad example

In 2001, director Yimou Zhang want to cooperated with his idol —— Ken Takakura, an old Japanese actor. And his good friend Weiping Zhang prepared to earn a large number of money from Yimou's new movie.

Weiping Zhang invested a lot of money into this film plan. He invited 5 most famous Chinese actors (include Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Daoming Chen, Ziyi Zhang and Donnie Yen)join in this film. But Yimou Zhang thought it is not enough to attracted Ken Takakura. He and his team began to write a good screenplay. This screenplay actually adapted from another famous Japanese movie, Rashomon. However, this time, story happened in ancient China, Qin Dynasty.

Unfortunately, in 2002, Ken Takakura declined the invitation from Yimou Zhang, because he thought it is not a good film screenplay! It is a story for earning money, not for audiences. In the end, Yimou Zhang invited another famous Chinese actor, Jet Li, to be this film starring.

Yimou Zhang's 'Hero' get a huge success in China. But majority audiences thought it is not a good film. Yimou Zhang can not compare with Korozawa Akira.

In my opinion, 'Hero' was failed because the director did not think about character's emotion. Every character's behavior in this movie are deliberately. They did it for the plot and screenplay, not for the audiences. Most audiences would find it looks beautiful but not logical. Audience watch it because these famous actors,they like it because Yimou Zhang's great pictures, they did not like it because the plot, the characters' behavior and they find this movie just want to earn money from them!