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.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.1 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 207 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 99 out of 135
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 135
  3. Negative: 24 out of 135
  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. Lolcano
    4
    Desperately disappointing. Could have been so much more but, despite amazing visuals, a vaguely interesting twist, and an intriguing justification for China's... unique style of governance this movie is a waste of time. Both the plot and fight scenes were far weaker than anticipated.… Full Review »
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