Hero Movie Review

Hero starts out with some background information, saying "People give up their live for many reasons. For friendship, for love, for an ideal. And people kill for the same reasons...before China was one great country, it was divided into seven warring states. In the kingdom of Qin was a ruthless ruler. He had a vision---to unite the land, to put an end, once and for all, to war. It was an idea soaked in the blood of his enemies. In any war there are heroes on both sides..."

The setting is now in a mountainous region. A band of cavalry surround a cart that is headed very fast toward a certain destination. The protagonist (Jet Li) is introduced. He was orphaned at a young age and never given a name, and also spent ten years perfecting unique skills as a swordsman. The king of Qin has summoned him to his court, because of something that he had accomplished, killing Long Sky, Flying Snow, and Broken Sword, assassins from Zhao. When Nameless arrives, the king asks him what he wants as reward, Nameless replies that he doesn't desire a reward, but according to Qin law he must be rewarded, so for killing Sky he was given 1,000 gold pieces, authority over 1000 households, and allowed to advance to within 20 paces of throne. The king wants to know in detail how Nameless was able to overcome the three assassins, so he tells him the story.

Broken Sword and Flying Snow were initially lovers, until Sword found out Snow was cheating on him with Sky. To create a rift between the two, Nameless first disposed of Sky, killing him at a chess house in front of seven guards from the king's palace. For killing the other two, Nameless gets 10,000 pieces of gold, authority over 5,000 households, and is allowed to advance within ten paces of king. Nameless says that he met the two at a calligraphy school, in which he gave them both a message from Sky that Flying Snow was the only person that touched his heart. Sky was certain that Snow would avenge the death, so Nameless challenges her to a duel the next day if she would like to. After learning this Sword goes and has an affair with his younger mistress named Moon in the sight of Snow to deliberately tick her off. Snow is so angered by the ordeal that she stabs Sword and ends up killing him. Snow ends up accepting Nameless' challenge to a duel and eventually dies by his sword.

After hearing all of this, the king realizes that this story could not have been true, because Flying Snow and Broken Sword were never enemies and would never do such a thing. He then goes on to show that Nameless' entire story had been a lie except for one fact, that Sky must have known one of the other three. He says that Sky and Nameless were allies, and that Sky lost deliberately by staging a fight using his guards as witnesses. He believes that Nameless must have perfected some type of technique that allows him to kill someone from ten paces away. In order to get to within ten paces, though, he needed one more accomplice. Nameless meets with Snow and Sword and asks for one of them to meet him for a duel after showing them his abilities with a sword. They both agree to go, but when they are halfway there, Snow stabs and wounds Sword so she can go alone to die. Snow and Nameless both fight each other, with Snow dying willingly. Broken Sword then fights Nameless within the depths of their minds over a lake, according to the king.

The king of Qin thinks that Nameless is the most dangerous assassin of them all. Nameless reveals that he is actually from Zhao and that his family was killed by the Qin army. Ten years ago he found his real identity and decided to assassinate the kind. He developed a move so that within ten paces he cannot fail to kill someone. One thing that the king underestimated, according to Nameless, was Broken Sword. Nameless revealed that he can also strike with surgical precision, in which the sword will enter through someone in a certain area so that it won't hit any vital organs. He asks either Snow or Sword if they would be willing to go through with it so he can deceive Qin's king, also revealing that Sky is almost fully recovered from their last fight. Snow then talks about how Broken Sword did not go through with the assassination attempt made by both of them three years before. Broken Sword then says that the king must not be killed, and that he will prevent Nameless from assassinating him. Snow agrees to help Nameless and they wound Sword so that he cannot prevent their plan from happening.

Snow and Nameless duel, with Snow getting stabbed and falling to her supposed death. Before Nameless can reach the king however, Sword meets him one last time and asks him to not kill the king of Qin. He talks about the assassination attempt they tried, and how he did not kill the king because of something he realized through studying calligraphy. Broken Sword then writes two words, our land, on the ground in front of Nameless and leaves. The king admits that this is what is truly on his heart also, and throws his sword at Nameless so that he can go through with his plan. Nameless does his move but does not kill the king, laying down his sword and walking away instead.

Snow knows that Sword must have done something to prevent Nameless from carrying out the plan and fights him over what happened. Sword ends up letting Snow kill him to show her that he truly loved her and wanted the land to be united under the king. Snow soon after kills herself as well over the event that just happened. Nameless ends up being executed by archers for conspiring to assassinate the king. The film ends with the following words: "the nameless warrior was executed as an assassin but buried as a hero. The King of Qin went on to conquer all of the six kingdoms and unite the country. As China's first Emperor he completed the Great Wall to protect his subjects. This was more than two thousand years ago. But even now when the Chinese speak of their country, they call it 'Our Land.'"

Was there an actual assassin who tried to kill the king of Qin and failed? While much of the film contains fictional elements, it is loosely based on an actual assassin named Jing Ke. According to his biography by Sima Qian, Ke was a man who loved to read books and play music. He lived in Yan province under the leader Tan, who was Crown Prince. Tan was very close with Zheng, the king of Qin, but they soon grew apart once the king started expanding his empire. Around the same time Fan Wuqi, a former general of the Qin army, fled to Yan as well for refuge. Yan was one of the remaining empires that hadn't been annexed by Zheng and the Qin. Tan meets Ke and begs for him to go to Qin and try to assassinate the king. Ke refused at first because he was not capable of doing such a thing. He eventually came up with another plan. The king of Qin was giving out a great reward to anyone who could bring him the head of his former general, Fan Wuqi. Ke thought that by fulfilling that request on behalf of the Yan Empire, the king of Qin would be gracious and not annex Yan. After giving the king the box with the head in it, he would then pull out his dagger and assassinate him. Everything played out like Ke had planned it, but when he tried to stab the king, Zheng drew himself back and started running. Ke chased him around until one of Zheng's attending physicians was able to hit him in the head with his medicine bag. Ke was soon killed thereafter and his legend goes on.

"The Biography of Jing Ke", Hobart and William Smith Colleges