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I feel like I have been waiting a long time to watch this movie and that the trailer for “Hero” (”Ying xiong”) has been teasing us for at least a year. I have to admit that I fully expected to leer an story stout of battle scenes and massed armies of men. My mistake. This film from China is a pointed story, distilled from sage that may well be tale, and with a point that may well be lost on Western audiences. This is distinct from those viewers who are unwilling to obtain the conventions of wire work in Chinese martial art pictures and whose standard of realism refuses to allow for the poetic ballet of combat.

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The prologue makes it sure that this epic takes set in China before it was China, when the land was made up of seven warring provinces and the King of Qin (Chen Dao Ming) dreamt of conquering the other six provinces and uniting the land. For years the king has been unable to have a level-headed night of sleep because there are three assassins who are out to ruin him. Now comes a nameless warrior (Jet Li), who has advance to the imperial court to be rewarded for killing the three unbeatable assassins. He is warned that he may not advance within 100 paces of the king or he will be killed. But because he has bested the assassin Sky (Donnie Yen) in combat, he is allowed with 20 paces to exclaim his memoir.

Most of the myth of “Hero” is told in flashback as Nameless tells his stories and the king questions him. We also learn of the fates of Broken Sword (Tony Leung) and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung), two assassins who were also a pair of lovers. But there is more than one truth and more than one epic to be told in this film. Director Zhang Yimou, improving on the artistry we first enjoyed in “Raise the Red Lantern,” color codes the stories that we spy. First the epic is told in lush shades of red, then in frosty blue, again in white, and finally in green. Drops of water and swirling yellow leaves all become parts of the dances of death during the fight sequences, captured by cinematographer Christopher Doyle. “Hero” is a fine film that uses its saturated colors better than any film of unusual memory. There is a code to the colors, but that is something you need to approach to terms with on your bear.

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Another strength of this film is that the fighting (choreographed by Wei Tung) and special effects do not overwhelm the actors who are required to play what is on some level the same scene as slightly different characters. I know there are computer generated effects in this film, especially since there are more arrows shot in “Hero” than any film in history, but for once I did not win the feel that what I was seeing was not proper. That is become this film keeps coming help to questions of aesthetics, from the breathtaking exercise of color to the eloquent belief that swordsmanship and calligraphy are intrinsically awaited.

Special mention has to be made of the music, quiet by Dun Tan and featuring violin solos and fiddling by Itzhak Perlman along with drumming by the Japanese group Kodo. I have never really seen one of those Hong Kong kung fu movies where everyone screams while they fight and I might never derive around to it given the still eloquence of the fights in movies like “Hero” (not to mention “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), where the moments are underscored by the sound of clashing swords, pounding drums, and a violin. “Hero” is an art film, albeit one made on a larger and more lustrous canvas.

“Hero” may be sold as being a tremendous film but it is really about something relatively stupid and simple. I disagree with the conception that either the style or substance of the film is beyond our Western sensibilities. Apparently the reason the film has the “Quentin Tarantino Presents” brand at the inaugurate was so that Miramax would not gash 20 minutes of the film out on the pretext that it too Asian/confusing for Western audiences. Indeed, I have seen some critics who professes to be confused about the complex place and I can only wonder if they were equally confused by “Rashomon,” an determined reference point to this one (in many ways Yimou owes more to Akira Kurosawa’s classic film than to Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) . Certainly after a century of cinema we are well-behaved to looking at the same thing from multiple perspectives and enjoying this gem of a film that has finally made its plot to our shores.

Much as Ang Lee demonstrated his directorial virtuosity in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, Zhang Yimou has applied his splendid talents to the martial arts genre with HERO. This is movie not only worth seeing, but worth watching two or three times, or more. Each viewing unveils original appreciation for Zhang’s artistic direction, Chris Doyle’s cinematography, Tan Dun’s musical gather, and Itzhak Perlman’s violin performance, not to mention unique insights into the sage line and character interrelationships.

The anecdote line is simple enough on its surface, based loosely on Chinese historical fact. The king of the Qin spot seeks to unify the Seven Kingdoms some 2,000 years ago, and three assassins from the defeated Zhao position wish to extinguish him. An unknown warrior named Nameless, from the Qin status, succeeds in killing the three assassins and returns to accept his reward in an audience with the King. As we concept segments of Nameless’s explanation of how he defeated three such fearsome opponents, a battle of wits ensues with the skeptical King until the truth emerges. Their verbal sparring beautifully parallels the feints, thrusts, and parries of the martial arts scenes.

Within this fable line, we are treated to amazing, ballet-like martial arts contests between Nameless and the three assassins. Each scene is dominated by one valuable color, from the opening desert white to the reds of the calligraphy school to the yellows of autumn leaves whose wind-swept swirls become weapons in themselves. A sword fight between Broken Sword and the King of Qin is cloaked in flowing green cloth, reminiscent of Zhang’s utilize of colored cloth in JU DOU.

While HERO evokes memories of RASHOMON, this is not the same motif. The three “versions” of the assassins’ reported deaths are rather more like the slow unfolding of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. As the account reveals itself, the relationship of the four assassins (including Nameless) moves from enemies to spurned lovers to companions working together and finally to a genuinely tragic (if seemingly platonic) fancy between two of them.

Several less recognized aspects of HERO are particularly grand of impress. First, anyone who saw Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung in IN THE MOOD FOR Care For will pick up it considerable that the same two actors could pull off the characters of Broken Sword and Flying Snow so successfully. Second, the game of Go played by the assassin Sky at the beginning of the movie magnificently foreshadows Nameless’s successive movements in the King’s presence from 100 to 20 to 10 paces. Third, the ballet movements in unison of the candle flames burning before the King are not only vivid in thought, they mirror the closing scene’s behavior of the King’s faceless advisors calling for Nameless’s execution. Finally, the juxtaposition of calligraphy brushes with swords and flying arrows is a dramatic visual rendition of the pen and sword adage.

A last comment. Criticism of HERO as Communist Party propaganda is laughably absurd and demonstrates a severe lack of opinion of Chinese history. Qin Shihuang was a product of his times, no more or less tyrannical than the Egyptian pharaohs, Alexander the Grand, Julius Caesar, William the Conqueror, Suleiman, or the American generals who “cleared” the Wild West of Indians. Regardless of his methods, Qin Shihuang accomplished a ample unification (All under heaven) that continues two millennia after his death. HERO evokes the founding of a nation and one unknown man’s ultimate decision to sublimate his desire for revenge to the greater qualified of his country. That makes it no more propagandist than stories of Abraham Lincoln’s struggle to re-unify the North and the South at the cost of countless thousands of lives, and far less pathetically propagandist than the novel “American hero” movies celebrating Jessica Lynch or Ronald Reagan. Americans need to seize a long, hard contemplate in the mirror more often before screaming propaganda about the cultural work of other countries.

HERO is not a perfect movie. The sword fight over the lake goes a bit over the top, the calligraphy/sword connection is overplayed, and Zhang Ziyi’s character Moon too often feels extraneous. Nevertheless, HERO is a Must Contemplate for anyone who loves stout story-telling and tall movie-making.