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Hero
Metascore
84 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 39 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 38 out of 39
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 39
  3. Negative: 0 out of 39
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  1. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    100
    Swooningly beautiful, furious and thrilling, Zhang Yimou's Hero is an action movie for the ages.
  2. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    100
    A walloping entertainment, brimming with the magic-realist action that made Ang Lee's somewhat similar "Couching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" a hit.
  3. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Glenn Kenny
    100
    Hero is one of the most beautiful and involving films of the year.
  4. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Chris Kaltenbach
    100
    Hero is a movie that lives up to all the nobility of its title, a gift to movie audiences who cherish the opportunity to be transported to a heretofore unimagined world and absorbed totally into what happens there.
  5. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    100
    Breathtaking masterpiece.
  6. Empire
    Reviewed by: Adam Smith
    100
    The comparisons are inevitable, so let's get them out of the way. Hero is a better film than "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
  7. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Charles Taylor
    100
    One of the most ravishing spectacles the movies have given us.
  8. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    100
    Led by director Zhang Yimou and dazzling cinematographer Christopher Doyle, the unseen Hero production team has made what just might be the most artistically sophisticated, most formally beautiful martial arts film the genre has seen.
  9. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    100
    Hero is the masterpiece. It employs unparalleled visual splendor to show why men must make war to secure the peace and how warriors may find their true destiny as lovers.
  10. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Hank Sartin
    100
    The result is both thrilling and thoughtful.
  11. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    91
    Perhaps the most beautiful film to hit Portland movie screens this year.
  12. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Sean Axmaker
    91
    Yimou plays his images like a visual symphony, and turns a potential costume pageant into an exhilarating national myth.
  13. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Tim Appelo
    90
    Hero is an epic, evocative of another epoch and of landscapes beyond time. It's overwhelming. And yet I miss the animating anger of Zhang's early masterworks, in which penniless young lovers were oppressed by impotent old men.
  14. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    90
    You can feel the movie's sensibility and its powerful emotions in every aching image, which leaves you so caught up in these ancient times, you're loath to return to present-day normalcy.
  15. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    90
    This is a leap into grandeur.
  16. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    89
    A terrific piece of work.
  17. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    A visual poem of extraordinary beauty.
  18. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    88
    If you found "Crouching Tiger" a stunning bore, you probably won't fall under Hero's spell. But the rest of us, well, we'll be more than happy to savor every moment of its strange, ravishing beauty.
  19. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    88
    Its stars - especially the photogenic Leung and Cheung, fresh from Wong Kar Wai's jazzy romance In the Mood for Love - are wonderfully charismatic. And wonderfully athletic.
  20. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    83
    I wish 'Hero's emotional heat rose more intensely -- more recklessly. There's something grand but distant and almost fetishistic about the operatic solemnity with which Zhang approaches the Rashomonic story of assassins attempting to kill a king.
  21. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    80
    Hero is not a CTHD clone; it’s a wonderful movie in its own right, staking its own territory as a dreamlike meditation on motivation and love.
  22. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    80
    If his (Zhang's) fight scenes don't fully intoxicate, though, his color and compositional rigor compensate for much. See Hero on the biggest screen you can find, and sit close enough for all that spiraling silk to tickle your nostril hairs.
  23. Variety
    Reviewed by: Derek Elley
    80
    A dazzlingly lensed, highly stylized meditation on heroism.
  24. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    75
    The film never musters the intimate feel the gifted director brought to such early films as "Raise the Red Dragon" and "Ju Dou." You cheer his accomplishment in Hero without ever feeling close to it.
  25. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    75
    As gorgeous and contemplative as it is, Hero is a genre picture and needs to deliver the action goods. To that end, there are plenty of clever, lovingly choreographed sequences.
  26. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    It's full of passionate performances (except for the wooden Li), sizzling swordplay, bold and dazzling hues, and breathtaking landscapes.
  27. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Carla Meyer
    75
    Not as profound as it is pretty, Hero nevertheless gives us something to ponder beyond Zhang's feat in mounting such a magnificent production.
  28. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    75
    These people may be really, really dangerous, but they're also really, really polite.
  29. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    75
    If there's a drawback, it's that the plot is trite. Hero is an exemplary example of visual poetry. The narrative is clearly of secondary concern.
  30. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    75
    In the end, the spectacular martial-arts epic seems to signify nothing much more than its own beauty, as brilliant and ephemeral as a fireworks display.
  31. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    70
    Though the specifics of the story may be unfamiliar to Western viewers, its broad outlines and underlying themes are universal, and Christopher Doyle's ravishing cinematography transcends language.
  32. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    70
    So deliriously chockablock with high-flying, color-coordinated fight scenes that non-aficionados may find it all a bit bewildering--a gorgeous abstraction. It sure is gorgeous, though, and it has a dream cast
  33. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    70
    Brilliant in flashes, thinned out as a whole, the film seems ideal for the DVD revolution, where the greatest hits can be compiled at the touch of a remote.
  34. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    70
    Zhang Yimou's impeccably crafted, all-star martial arts extravaganza, is the essence of shallow gravitas.
  35. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Gregory Weinkauf
    70
    Hero keeps its characters stiffly archetypal, like chess pieces sent whizzing through outrageous maneuvers. Unfortunately, this apparent choice of spectacle over intimacy put me at a slight remove.
  36. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joanne Kaufman
    70
    Rich in motion -- the very clothes of the characters seem under a choreographer's direction -- as well as imagery.
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  37. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    70
    It's a brilliant movie, fluent, spectacular, breathtaking and basically, uh, wrong.
  38. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    63
    A movie just good enough to keep nurturing rooting interest as you watch it.
  39. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    60
    Hero is easy on the eyes, but it's too segmented to gather much momentum and too art-directed to convey much urgency.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.0 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 196 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 100 out of 136
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 136
  3. Negative: 24 out of 136
  1. cameron326
    4
    Occasionally spectacular. Often ridiculous and pretentious. Wooden acting. Bad dialogue. Unconvincing story. Completely unbelievable ending. With this movie, Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower, once respected director Zhang Yimou has stopped making films with any meaning or social significance and simply gone after the money. Shame.… Full Review »
  2. SaskiaS.
    0
    Where can I begin... I cannot understand all the good critics this movie got. Even the cinematography that got the only bonuses with many who disliked this film didn't do it for me. It was just overkill. In a movie, I expect to be told an interesting, or better yet, compelling story. But Hero was just a catenation of way too artful imagery. It had no plot substance whatsoever and lacked logic in a way that it was sometimes cringeworthy. Of course it didn't help that only ten minutes into the film I could easily foresee where the storyline was heading. So there were no surprises for me and I really like surprises in a movie.… Full Review »
  3. imthenoob
    7
    It was a fine film but definently had it's flaws. Such as the over the top unrealistic action, which was sort of stupid imo. Acting was fine though and the plot was satisfying, Ended well too. It was ok but flawed. Worth checking out imo.… Full Review »
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