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