In Hero, Jet Li plays a prefect from a small jurisdiction in ancient China before the different states were combined. Jet Li's character, who remains nameless throughout the film, arrives at the palace of the King of Qin to announce that he has defeated the three worst assassins of the land who have been constantly plotting to kill the country's leader. For 10 years, the King of Qin (Daoming Chen) has not allowed anyone within 100 paces of him and has worn armor because of the constant threat of assassination - a feat that was apparently almost achieved some three years ago when two of the three major assassins featured in this movie got within striking distance of the King. The focus of Hero is Nameless telling the King how he defeated each of the killers.
The first fight in the movie is between Nameless and a spear-wielding character named Long Sky (Donnie Yen). But this is only the start of the film. Even though Nameless' battle with Sky is stunning, the real fighting gems come when the prefect travels to a calligraphy school that houses the other two assassins, Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung) and Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai).
Jet Li's character retells the events that occurred while the King's own forces attempted to storm the school. It is here that we watch as Nameless and Snow block hundreds of flying arrows in order to allow Broken Sword to work. It is also here where Nameless uses his knowledge of a relationship between Snow and Sky to cause a rift to form between Sky and Broken Sword.
But when Nameless finishes his tales, it seems that the King sees things in a slightly different light, and he tells his own version of Nameless' story, and it is in this retelling where the film's unique visual style shows through. Each time a fight tale is told, there is a primary color dominating the screen. When Li talks of a discussion in the school's library, everything is red, but that color is replaced by a pale blue when the King talks. When the assassination attempt is described to Li's character, everything is green. When Snow fights Broken Sword's apprentice, Moon (Ziyi Zhang), the trees drop golden leaves everywhere. It is these stunning pallet choices combined with excellent fighting choreography that really make Hero stand out as a stunning martial arts movie.
As far as the "Special Edition" aspect of Hero is concerned, the only added special features include the TV commercial for the movie's soundtrack and a behind-the-scenes documentary of some of the movie's fight sequences. While the TV spot isn't very interesting, "Close-Up Of A Fight Scene" is. It looks closely at the movie's opening fight with Long Sky, the fight between Flying Snow and Moon, as well as the fight between Broken Sword and Nameless at the lake. The other special features included on this DVD include an interview Quentin Tarantino conducts with Jet Li, storyboard comparisons with some of the movie's big fight sequences and a lengthy making-of that covers all of the usual bases.
In the end, the addition of a fairly short featurette doesn't warrant a re-purchase of Hero if you already have it. On the flip side, the visual quality seen in the Blu-ray version might make even existing owners of the movie want to buy this release's high-def counterpart.
