Hero is a beautifully crafted movie, but unfortunately it's also carelessly revisionist. Zhang Yimou's first attempt at a wuxia martial arts pic uses as its backdrop the chaotic period before China was finally united under one ruler. During that time, seven major states waged war against one another, but it was the kingdom of Qin (pronounced "cheen," if you were wondering) that eventually won out. Its king was intelligent but brutal; efficient but merciless; and he is largely considered a notorious figure in Chinese history, remembered for his cruelty and paranoia as much as for his stunning accomplishments, which include uniting China and building the Great Wall.

Many attempts were made on the life of the King of Qin before his unification, and it is from this angle that Zhang fashions a brand new legend. The story he tells is philosophical to a fault -- it is used to illustrate a noble ideal, distinctly Eastern in its nature and in its teaching (in this case, to a movie audience). The characters who discover and follow this ideal through are seen as honorable -- "heroes" -- for their inner transcendence and their strict, final adherence to its principles. And this would all be fine and good if the film didn't seem to be apologizing for the King of Qin in the process.

Viewed within the world it creates and as a self-contained fable, Hero is an effective story and an eye-popping movie. Zhang communicates his tale with such controlled cinematic formality that he creates not just a fictional realm but a new plane of existence. Even though the movie is mostly a set of flashbacks expressed with bold color schemes (one flashback is blanketed in red, the next in blue, etc.), the formal style isn't limited to those sequences and therefore permeates the film throughout, emphasizing its status as a fable as a whole. The movie's lack of conventional realism is fitting for the theme it explores -- since Hero preaches such a high ideal, figuratively far above messy reality, it only makes sense that the film itself is removed from reality. It's told in distinct, neat strokes, as if each section was its own separate classroom lesson.

Within that style, though, the movie still has problems in two of its endeavors. Hero is a movie that wants to be taken very seriously -- the teacher of the classroom is, in effect, stern and inflexible, much like a calligraphy teacher depicted in the film -- thus, much of the movie feels the pressure of its own weight. It's ponderous and therefore distancing. Movies with a philosophical bent already ask much from their audiences, but they can be engaging; this movie, however, pushes things further when it offers up such mystical notions as combatants imagining their swordfight within their minds. Happily, its vivacious use of color and audacious action set pieces alleviate its underlying coldness.

Related to this is its strained attempt at eliciting an emotional connection from its audience. Hero contains a love story that can't be developed as deeply as it would like because of the fractured nature of its narrative -- two of the flashbacks never even really happened, since their veracity is duly debunked. And because of the distancing nature of the presentation, the emotional hooks don't get a chance to establish a strong hold. The aim was to give the audience an idea of the emotional magnitude of the heroes' sacrifice for their ideal, but, despite Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung's admirable effort to convey feeling through short spurts of portentous dialogue, it's never quite convincing. Unlike, say, the portrayal of their affair in In the Mood for Love, Hero's depiction lacks real simmering time and warmth -- and using Tan Dun's rehash of his own Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon score as a crutch doesn't help.

Hero really starts to wobble, though, when it's viewed in its historical context. It cannot be excused from this because it uses at least one non-fictional character -- the King of Qin. Thus, the purity of the ideal the movie presents is weakened by its association with real world events. First of all, the ideal only works when it is seen in hindsight -- for although during the setting of the movie the King's ultimate victory might have looked like a foregone conclusion, it still isn't truly foregone (he still had six states to conquer); and the only way the nobility of the heroes' actions can be upheld is if the King really does unite China. Conveniently for the writers, he eventually does.

Second, the King is presented with such foresight and wisdom that one can easily be misled into thinking that he, too, embodies the heroes' nobility. Perhaps the case can be made that his actions are justifiable, since they did lead to the creation of a great nation -- but, again, conveniently, this only works for him because... well, he succeeded. If other historical, tyrannical would-be conquerors were as fortunate, would the suffering they caused a great many people also be justifiable by a philosophical conclusion? I don't believe Hero is intentionally trying to make the King come off smelling like a rose; after all, it's really a pacifist movie, arguing that individuals can attain an enlightenment that is above both emotion and violence. It isn't driven by a desire to rewrite history; it's just using history as a backdrop to tell its tale. During the running time of the film, however, the King does benefit. The movie's attempt at balancing his portrayal by mentioning his cruelty becomes practically invisible when the heroes themselves eventually justify his course of action (and when the character of the King himself convincingly says peace is truly what is in his heart).

Even with its problems, Hero's strengths shine through. Its striking style is bold and consistent, its approach to the genre is radical, and its attempt at injecting serious philosophy in a movie produced for a mass world audience is respectable. It fights for a strict ideal, which is not something a lot of other movies can claim to do. But the trouble with strict ideals is how much more easily they splinter when faced with reality. Hero's own courageous, voluntary application of its principle to a historical scenario creates the result of supplying itself with its own cracks. Thus, the movie's tightly controlled world is not truly ideal, and its own ideas are called into question. It seems to realize this, and as a patch it tries to soften the issue by asking its viewers to pity the King. He is not allowed to transcend.

The film leads us to believe, with its final scene, that the King is a victim of his own army and reputation, of the war machine that he himself built. What the man did to deserve this reading from Zhang is difficult to discern, but if we follow this logic through, then the boundaries break and we could find ourselves pitying any fascist-leaning dictator who believes peace is only achievable through means of forced submission. It worked out decently for China just once in her history -- that doesn't mean we should forgive it.

(Released by Miramax and rated "PG-13" for stylized martial arts violence and a scene of sensuality.)

Review also posted on www.windowtothemovies.com.