The Hollywood Reporter - Kirk Honeycutt (originally in English)

While the action sequences are right up there with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," Zhang uses the genre to relate a touching and tragic tale about star-crossed lovers caught up with forces that threaten to overwhelm them.

L'Humanité - Jean Roy (le texte original français)

We are in an authentic genre film, capable of passing Eugène Sue (note by photon: popular novelist) off as Claudel's (note by photon: Paul Claudel, poet, dramatist and diplomat) (...) The direction is sometimes very static, though superbly composed, in the scenes without combats, but these latters are admirable, as well as the last quarter hour worthy of the largest melodramas.

Le Monde - Jean-Luc Douin (le texte original français)

Unbelievable clothes, aerial choreography, scenes of nature where burst fire reds, gaudy greens, gold yellows, a symphony of autumnal colours, and a storm of snow and of frost : while the characters' love drama leaves coldness, the formal beauty of their scenery and of their murderous gambols fascinates us.

Le Figaro - Dominique Borde (le texte original français : http://www.lefigaro.fr/cannes/20040520.FIG0307.html )

(...) the film is an aesthetic and fulgurant picture book. To such a point that the naïveté of the story and the unlikeliness of the combats are swept by the virtuosity of the direction, the lyricism of the action.

Télérama - Aurélien Férenczi (le texte original français)

Mattering to it, these are the combats, enough bluffing, ad hoc special effects (...) Among these spectacular scenes, alas, one is bored a little : Hero reached a historic and mythic dimension, in spite of confessing its own very conceptual aesthetic proposition. Here, there is a mere story of love betrayal and of sacrifice, which takes pains to impress us.

Zurban - Mathieu Dupont

Flight of arrows and of knives in homing warhead, combats made to dance : the action is superb and pungent with a humour which makes us accept its unlikeliness. The story would however become worthy by being more philosophical and by digging into the nice subject that it grazed by.

Variety - Derek Elley (originally in English : http://www.variety.com/cannes99/ )

(...) a more crowd-pleasing but less abstract dip into the genre directed with equal calculation. The tangled tale of love and disguise is awesome in its action sequences but doesn't touch the heart to the same degree (...)

home