I'm not a big Jet Li fan by any means - I think his acting is wooden, sometimes painfully so; he's more of an action hero star than actor. So when I added Hero to our Netflix queue, it was with some reticence. My reasoning was that even Jet Li couldn't bring down a film that also featured the superb duo of Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung (check out In the Mood For Love).
My fears were unfounded though, as Jet Li turns in an adequate - even occasionally good - performance, and Leung and Cheung are given roles that allow them to show off their chemistry and range. The film is beautiful in a way that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was beautiful, but unlike that often-praised film that I consider one of the more overrated movies in recent memory, Hero actually has a neat storyline. Yes, the King is overplayed big-time, and comes off as a reject from a bad straight-to-video Kung-Fu movie, but otherwise, a very solid film. And why do I call it anti-Kung-Fu? See it, then I think you'll understand.
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