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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 2004)
BY LOIS WADSWORTH Broken Sword (Tony Leung) and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung), lovers and warriors. film is that even a tyrant must acknowledge a true hero when he appears. Director Zhang Yimou is best known in this country for his historical epics such as Red Sorghum (1987), Ju Dou (1990), Raise the Red Lantern has created one of the year’s most beautiful films. Production designer Yi Zhenzhou also worked on Chen Kaige’s The Emperor and the Assassin (1988), which tells some of the same story as Hero. His work in Hero is impeccable. Costume designer Emi Wada won an Academy Award for Kurosawa’s Ran (1985). Hero’s principals change to dif- . . . THE LARGER OBJECTIVE OF ZHANG’S MASTERFUL FILM IS THAT even a tyrant must acknowledge A TRUE HERO WHEN HE APPEARS. Ancient Chinese legend drives operatic film. Z hang Yimou’s latest film, Hero, is operatic in scope and passion. A romantic, mythic tale set 2,000 years ago during the bloody reign of a king who would become the first emperor of China, the film un-spools in a labyrinthine narrative style that casts the viewer under its spell. The Qin King (Chen Daoming) is a ruth- less tyrant, and provincial resistance to his repressive, warring rule includes a nameless folk hero (Jet Li), who arrives at court to great acclaim. Nameless claims to have van- quished three legendary assassins bent on murdering the king: Broken Sword (Tony Leung), Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung) and Sky (Donnie Yen). Hailed as a hero, the nameless warrior is presented to the king, where he tells the story of how he rose from his position as a provincial sheriff. Nameless modestly tells his story in great detail. The king is profoundly interest- ed. The story unfolds as a series of set pieces, and the major characters are intro- duced, including Moon (Zhang Ziyi), no less a martial arts expert than her master and lover, Broken Sword. Because the king has offered power, great riches and a personal audience to anyone who killed his would-be assassins, he listens intently to the tale. The former village official tells how he outwit- ted Sky in combat, then how he used Snow and Broken Sword’s love for each other to slay them both. Ah, the king says. I think the story goes this way. And he proceeds to tell a more omi- nous, different story of the same events. At the conclusion of the king’s story, the name- less warrior says, you understand some things but not the whole story. And he retells the tale yet again. And so it goes. The legend grows more elaborate and convoluted with each telling and retelling, During the storytelling, a mere 10 steps separate the king from his unknown subject, who sits before him obediently. Rows of can- dles flicker as they blow this way and that, while king and warrior warily approach the moment of truth in their fateful encounter. There are many film sources for a tale such as this, notably Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 Rashomon. In the Kurosawa film, the four conflicting versions of the same story suggest there is no objective truth to be found in the recollection of any story. But the larger objective of Zhang’s masterful ferent colors in scenes of importance — an unforgettably vivid red, a soothing pale green and pure white. Composer Tan Dun’s music is perfect for Hero’s various settings and moods. Tan Dun made an acclaimed appearance at the 2001 Oregon Bach Festival with his brilliant work, Water Passion after St. Matthew. The composer won the 2000 original score Academy Award for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Hero is now playing at Cinemark and Cinema World. Very highly recommended. ew BY LOIS WADSWORTH Pioneering Surfboarders Fearless iconoclasts RIDING GIANTS: Documentary . Directed by Stacy Peralta. Written by Peralta and Sam George. Produced by Agi Orsi, Jane Kachmer, Stacy Peralta. Executive producers, Nathalie Delest, Franck Marty, Laird Hamilton. Original music, Matter. Edited and co-produced by Paul Crowder. Director of photography, Peter Pilafian, with action photography by Don King (Hawaii), Sonny Miller (Hawaii), Grant Washburn (Mavericks). Featured surfers Greg Noll, Jeff Clark, Laird Hamilton. Sony Pictures Classics, 2004. NR. 101 minutes. I tried to interest other surfers for 15 years. During those years, Noll rode Maverick’s big waves alone. He called himself “the Lone Ranger” to Surfer magazine, which wrote about Maverick’s in 1992. The secret was out, which attracted great Waimea surfers Ken Bradshaw and Mark Foo. We’re introduced to Laird Hamilton, now acknowledged to be surfing’s greatest big-wave rider, when he was a youngster, hang- ing out in the surf in Hawaii. Hamilton’s ambitions extended not only to mastering surfing but also to competitive paddleboard rac- ing, sailboarding and kite-boarding. Hamilton, Buzzy Kerbox and Darrick Doerner revolutionized surfing by being towed into the 25- foot waves at North Shore’s outer reef called Backyard Sunset. First using a speedboat, then later a personal water craft (PWC), Hamilton jumpstarted tow-in surfing. Hamilton found a Hawaiian surf spot called Peahi on the north shore of Maui for the perform- ance art he perfected — riding giants, waves as high as 40, 50, even 60 feet. Chock full of interesting interviews, the history of surfing, and the time-based revolutions in surf-board technology, Riding Giants is a documentary film that will enthuse even the least athletic among us, in part because it is a thrilling spectator sport. Armchair surfing is no substitute for the real thing, but watching these giant waves and the small humans who brave them is a visual epiphany for the viewer. Riding Giants opens Friday at the Bijou. Very highest recom- mendations. ew f the title isn’t plain-spoken enough, this is a movie about big- wave surfing, more specifically about the surfer phenomenon and the fabulous, fearless pioneers of the sport from its roots in Polynesia to global wave-seekers. Some sequences are simply breath-taking both for the daring of the surfer and the sheer size and violence of elemental water rising to Herculean heights. But the most striking thing about the film is its beauty. Riding Giants is a film of bewitching grace and sublime delight as well as athleticism of the highest order. Stacy Peralta’s earlier documentary film about skateboarders, Dogtown and Z Boys, is one of my favorite nonfiction films, in part because of how doggedly he pursues and shows the spirit of the young guys who created the sport. Likewise, Peralta’s sense of why surfing is worthy of serious consideration as a sport drives him to look beneath surfing’s rebellious and pleasure-seeking surface to the more solitary and spiri- tual values at its true core. The three athletes who are featured in the film speak to these values in their own words. Greg Noll was surf- ing’s first personality. He wore loud, striped shorts and stood proudly on his board, his arms outstretched. Noll began surfing in California and visited Hawaii for the first time in 1954. By late 1957, Noll led the way to the unridden big waves of Waimea Bay. Later he turned to publishing surf magazines, making and selling surf- boards, and after riding one last, giant wave at Makaha Point Surf in 1969, he gave up surfing. Today Noll looks like a happy, satisfied man. Another Californian, Jeff Clark, began surfing near Half Moon Bay in 1967, when he was 11 years old. When he turned 17, Clark discovered the big waves Greg Noll in Waimea Bay, Hawaii. nearby at Maverick’s, each wave 10 to 12 feet high. He GREG NOLL’S PRIVATE ARCHIVE HERO: Directed by Zhang Yimou. Written (in Mandarin with English subtitles) by Li Feng, Zhang Yimou and Wang Bin, based on their story. Produced by Bill Kong, Zhang Yimou. Executive producers, Dou Shou Fang, Zhang Wei Pin. Cinematographer, Christopher Doyle. Edited by Zhai Ru and Angie Lam. Composer, Tan Dun. Violin and fiddle solos by Itzhak Perlman. Production design, Huo Ting Xiao, Yi Shen Zhou. Costume design, Emi Wada. Action director, Tony Ching Siu Tung. Staring Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung Man-yuk, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Daoming and Donnie Yen. U.S. releases sponsored by Quentin Tarantino. Miramax Films, 2004. PG-13. 99 minutes. (1991) and To Live (1994), as well as his smaller, recent films such as Not One Less (1999) and The Road Home (1999). This is Zhang’s first action film. To achieve the film’s outstanding look, he called on the tal- ents of some of the great professionals work- ing today. Christopher Doyle’s cinematography can be seen in Wong Kar Wai’s films, Chungking Express, Happy Together, Ashes of Time and In the Mood for Love, my favorite. Here he MIRAMAX FILMS, 2004. Many Faceted Jewel SEPTEMBER 2, 2004 21
