Jet Li's "HERO" in Irish Cinema??

HacksawEddie

Is Hero going to get a theatrical release here or what?
it looks brilliant, but its not out here it seems!?


Cheers

impr0v

November 5th according to today's Tribune.

HacksawEddie

nice one, thanks

KdjaCL

Its nothing special found to be a bit boring, plot made little sense with lots of lingering long shots of characters who seemed to be just in the movie cos they were cool. Broken Sword sits for 5 hours thinking of caligigraphy ......... Flying Snow enters room ........ broken Sword makes caliigraphy.......Flying Snow helps ......... wtf?

kdjac

Mr E

Saw it last week. Easily one of my top 3 movies this year. Superbly choreographed fight scenes, beautiful special effects, great acting and enjoyable story. Some of the scenes will make your jaw hit the ground - this is one of the best looking movies I have ever seen.... There is no (or very very little) blood, so it should be 12PG here. Don't let that put you off, though.

Recommended...

projectmayhem

excellent. i've heard a lot about this movie and have wanted to see it for months now... thankfully i get to see it on a big screen

Chad ghostal

Good film, a bit overdone, gets bogged down in style imo,
very nice looking, some good fights. .worth your time i suppose.

Spunog UIE

does it have all that weightless? stuff the way it was in crouching tiger hidden dragon? People running across water, balancing on branches etc.

Couldn't stand that. Fight scenes look good tho from what is shown in the trailer.

OfflerCrocGod

Gideon wrote:

does it have all that weightless? stuff the way it was in crouching tiger hidden dragon? People running across water, balancing on branches etc.

Lots. It's a bit full of itself and I think it was aimed at a Western market. It's OK.

steveland?

Advert looked very good. Really does seem very similar to kill bill though.

People massacre his people (like when they kill the folks in kill bill), so he goes looking to kill them one by one.

rivers

nah its nothing like kill bill, for one the fights are actually good in this
and besides diff stories altogether, hero is about an assasination(?) plot to kill the emperor....

nadir

SteveD wrote:

Advert looked very good. Really does seem very similar to kill bill though.

People massacre his people (like when they kill the folks in kill bill), so he goes looking to kill them one by one.

what are you smoking crack?

right so revenge has been done before, I guess its an unorigional theme from now on :rolleyes:
I couldn't think of two more different movies

steveland?

Well let's be fair I couldn't stop thinkin of Kill Bill during it cos of the little Quentin Tarantion presents thingy at the start of the ad...


Never said it didn't look like a great movie though

segadreamcast

"I couldn't think of two more different movies"

Finding Nemo and... ooo, the Exorcist. Sorry - couldn't resist*

*- I don't want to hear about any similarities in the aforementioned movies .

PWEI

I watched his new one House Of Flying Daggers at the weekend.Some people said it was better than Hero but I can't agree.It was good but the ending was a bit predictable. Zhang Zhiyi was as gorgeous as ever though!

gandalf

Hero is an excellent film. Got the DVD from CD-Wow. Well worth seeing, I might venture to see it on the big screen. Visually stunning film and its nothing like Kill Bill :rolleyes:

iasc

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Lots. It's a bit full of itself and I think it was aimed at a Western market. It's OK.

aimed at the western market....id disagree with that

cosgrove80

gandalf wrote:

Hero is an excellent film. Got the DVD from CD-Wow. Well worth seeing, I might venture to see it on the big screen.

Definitely should. I saw it when it was playing down in Galway. It's very much a "cinema" film. It loses some of it's impact on the small screen.

OfflerCrocGod

iasc wrote:

aimed at the western market....id disagree with that

It was meant to emulate CTHD.

ObeyGiant

iasc wrote:

aimed at the western market....id disagree with that

It's one thing to disagree with someone else's opinion. It's quite another to disagree with fact. Zhang Yimou deliberately tailored Hero to be more "western-friendly". From an interview with Zhang Yimou:
"But I think we need the international market. The budget is high. To make sure the boss (investor) make money, only focusing on the domestic market is not enough. Piracy has destroyed the domestic market. Now a movie with 30 million returns would be something very incredible and the producer can only get 10 to 15 million. This is only 100 thousands US dollars. This is not enough!"

Myself and Karl-Hungus discussed this aspect of Hero at length and off-topic in the thread Tarantino's new film - Inglorious Bastards.

ixoy

ObeyGiant wrote:

Myself and Karl-Hungus discussed this aspect of Hero at length and off-topic in the thread Tarantino's new film - Inglorious Bastards.

And what a great thread that was! Re-match please!

I hope 'Hero' is better than CTHD. CTHD looked great but lacked any emotional depth for me, coming off as a bit too soulless. I'll find out for sure in a couple of weeks...

ObeyGiant

ixoy wrote:

And what a great thread that was! Re-match please!

Always on the lookout for a rematch, but the cunt seems to be talking more and more sense these days.

iasc

ObeyGiant wrote:

It's one thing to disagree with someone else's opinion. It's quite another to disagree with fact. Zhang Yimou deliberately tailored Hero to be more "western-friendly". From an interview with Zhang Yimou:
"But I think we need the international market. The budget is high. To make sure the boss (investor) make money, only focusing on the domestic market is not enough. Piracy has destroyed the domestic market. Now a movie with 30 million returns would be something very incredible and the producer can only get 10 to 15 million. This is only 100 thousands US dollars. This is not enough!"

Myself and Karl-Hungus discussed this aspect of Hero at length and off-topic in the thread Tarantino's new film - Inglorious Bastards.

yeah i agree that is was western-friedndly, but not that it was 'AIMED' at a western market

ObeyGiant

iasc wrote:

yeah i agree that is was western-friedndly, but not that it was 'AIMED' at a western market

Of course it was - Zhang Yimou as much as said that in the quote I pasted, where he said there's no way he could make his money back if he just relied on the domestic market. In order for this film to be a success, he says he "needs" the international market. That certainly sounds to me like he's aiming it at the West.

This is supported by the fact that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (the other great wuxia success story) absolutely bombed in its domestic market, but made its money back in the west.

iasc

ObeyGiant wrote:

Of course it was - Zhang Yimou as much as said that in the quote I pasted, where he said there's no way he could make his money back if he just relied on the domestic market. In order for this film to be a success, he says he "needs" the international market. That certainly sounds to me like he's aiming it at the West.

This is supported by the fact that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (the other great wuxia success story) absolutely bombed in its domestic market, but made its money back in the west.

if it was aimed at a western market, then why didnt it come out in 2002 in the states, also miramax wanted to cut at least 20 minutes from the film because it was 'too' asian, and thought american cinemea goers wouldnt get it

ObeyGiant

Whoa.. deja vu.

iasc wrote:

if it was aimed at a western market, then why didnt it come out in 2002 in the states

Initially, because there were "problems" with the Chinese distributor. Followed by more problems, like the intended release date being 'taken over' by Jack Chan's "The Medallion".

This doesn't mean that they were reluctant to release it to a western audience that would be baffled by it - they just wanted to release it in the best possible way to maximise their returns.

iasc wrote:

also miramax wanted to cut at least 20 minutes from the film because it was 'too' asian, and thought american cinemea goers wouldnt get it

Well, there are two responses to this. Both of which say the same thing: that your point here does not in any way go to disprove the western-friendly nature of Hero (and by the way, don't think I haven't noticed that you've now taken to completely ignoring the director of Hero saying he needed the movie to be western-friendly).

The first is the traditional "Well, Miramax cut everything, regardless of its content, just because they can, because Harvey Weinstein is a nasty human being".

But then there's the other one, the one I personally lean towards, which says that this makes no sense.

The story about Miramax cutting the movie is something I've had trouble with from the start, and I'm hoping you, or anyone can clear this up for me. Hero, as it was originally released, and as Miramax bought it, runs at 1hour 30minutes. There are hundreds of rumours going around about Miramax's cut of the movie, but most go along the lines of "Miramax wanted to cut 20 minutes of the film that wouldn't make sense to western audiences, but said they'd leave it alone if Quentin Tarantino put his name to the movie (which he did)".

Now, my problem with this is - would Miramax cut 20 minutes from a movie that was only 1 hour 30 minutes long? Would they spend all that cash, and go through all that heartache just to release a film that was 70 minutes long?

I think the problem comes from the fact that after Miramax bought the film, the director released an "extended edition" in China, which Miramax hadn't bought the rights to. But this is just a guess.. either way, I'd appreciate if someone could clear this up for me.

iasc

i don't like the way your putting words in my mouth, i said that I agree that the film was western-friendly, however my point has been from the start that it wasn't aimed solely at a western market, why would they release it in asia first if this was the case, it's harldy a good predictor of western success

ObeyGiant

iasc wrote:

i don't like the way your putting words in my mouth, i said that I agree that the film was western-friendly, however my point has been from the start that it wasn't aimed solely at a western market, why would they release it in asia first if this was the case, it's harldy a good predictor of western success

I'm sorry, I don't mean to put words into your mouth. Let me just clarify: to me, the phrases "need the international market"/"need the film to be western-friendly" [to make the money back] are essentially the same as "aimed at a western market". Perhaps less so in the case of the "need the film to be western-friendly", but that was my slip-up in paraphrasing the director's actual statement - he "needs the international market".

The director understood that if the film bombed in the western market, but did really well (like, really well) in the domestic market, it still wouldn't make its money back. So it needed to be a success with western audiences. This, to me, is aiming a film at a western audience.

As for why the question of why you would release a film in Asia first.. well.. because it had Asian backers. And Asian distributors long before Miramax came along. At a guess, those guys would be pretty pissed if they didn't get first showing.

PWEI

By the way for fans of Darren Aronovsky who didn't know,he is set to direct the film version of the classic novel Watchmen.I haven't read it but a friend of my is thrilled cause he couldn't put the book down and is a fan of Aronovsky.As Clint has already worked twice with Darren, it would only be perfect if he writes the score again.But we all know that this is not always the case in the film industry,but surely the job should go to someone who the director already knows is good, and also someone who dedicated the lyrics of one of his old song to the series.

PWEI

Sorry wrong topic,I'm running ahead of myself.

Boro

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

It was meant to emulate CTHD.

Very similar film to CTHD alright in overall style and cinematography. Quite beautiful to watch, and with several nice plot ideas. Overall a very enjoyeable film but not for everyone.