Hero is an important symbol of the famous director Zhang Yimou's artistic transformation in the face of film globalization and commercialization. Heroes is full of stars, grand scenes and exquisite pictures. The freehand brushwork of martial arts design combines the traditional artistic conception of China with the violent aesthetic modeling of action films, creating a new round of box office myth and film industrialization mode in Chinese mainland. The American "Wall Street Journal" said: "Hero really opened the curtain of China's blockbuster era". At the same time, the grand narrative strategy of Hero between business and art has also aroused fierce debates among intellectuals, the general public, official ideology and film professionals.
The theme of heroes has always been the focus of debate. The theme of the movie Hero comes from the story of Jing Ke stabbing Qin. Since Historical Records, the story of "Jing Ke stabbing Qin" has been praised by people, in which the spirit of individual resisting power is the core, and "Xia" is also defined as "forbidden by force". The social function of martial arts literature and later martial arts movies is to use Xia's image to break through social taboos to a certain extent, confront power politics and provide readers or viewers with pleasure that is not available in reality. After 1980s, both Zhou Xiaowen and Chen Kaige rewrote this theme in images, in which the resistance to mainstream ideology and the psychological reconstruction of historical figures such as princes reflected the influence of modern enlightenment narrative on film images. However, in Hero, Zhang Yimou changed the narrative strategy, and the theme wandered between business and art, which dispelled the rebellious meaning of enlightenment and reflected the ambivalence of the middle class towards grand narrative in the current domestic cultural context. It can be said that Hero reflects the basic understanding of power in current society: the worship of power and the dream of power coexist, and the film tries to reconcile this contradiction. It is the unique creativity of this film to organize the two opposing requirements of consolidating rights and challenging rights side by side into the story. At the same time, the author provides two positions for the audience to choose from: a strong challenger and a weak challenger. The author tries to balance the relationship between these two people morally through various film means. This reflects the author's contradictory view of heroes, and he tries to dress both of them up as heroes. It is this seemingly ambiguous attitude that leads to the mutual dissolution of the two, which makes both types of characters not conform to the heroes in the traditional concept. However, the image of the film is touching, and the audience habitually identifies with the chivalrous men represented by Unknown, broken arrow and Fei Xue at first. They are the rewriting of a desperate man like Jing Ke who turned to work for the rich and noble, showing people in a new identity, and they are the synthesis of literati and chivalrous men. Wu Ming symbolically stabbed the king of Qin with the hilt, which is the crowning touch of the whole film. This narrative may be far-fetched, but it is symbolic and reflects the author's good intentions: it is more important and effective to influence the rulers' minds than to destroy their bodies. Unknown and broken arrow can't seize the rights of the rulers by violence, so they can only settle for the second best, and convey their idea of calling for peace by exerting greater discourse power. It should be admitted that the director has spent a lot of thoughts on smoothing out the blank and covering up the contradictions, which is an inevitable choice for commercial films. The popularity of a movie is likely to satisfy many interests and wishes of different audiences. From the rational analysis, they are likely to come from conflicting and uncoordinated ideologies. The key to winning the audience is not to emphasize that one ideology is superior to other ideologies in an attempt to fundamentally solve the contradictions that cannot be solved in reality, but to find a way to reconcile and let various interest groups find the factors that satisfy them from the text.
Hero is also quite innovative in the combination of art and business. In addition to the narrative strategy of Rashomon, drawing lessons from Hollywood blockbusters, it is also quite innovative in martial arts scenes, video screen design, audio-visual effects and so on. It can be said that Hero is a visual feast. All the visual symbols about China spare no effort in Hero: Go, calligraphy, sword, guqin, landscape, bamboo tube, bow and arrow, towering buildings, endless yellow sand, green mountains and clear waters, red walls and green tiles. As far as color is concerned, in Hero, it is the opposition and collision between "red" and "black". "Black" is the representative color of the Qin Dynasty, symbolizing the pressure of grand narrative and the majesty of mainstream ideology, while the film uses red as a metaphor for national Chou He hatred, red as a symbol of the inner strength before the volcanic eruption, and red as a declaration of a unique chivalrous determination and ambition. From the beginning, the film shows the powerful army of Qin State, the unparalleled palace buildings, thick smoke and quiet black. The serious king of Qin, dressed in black, wearing a black crown, black boots and black armor, sat firmly in a black Qin Gong with a black dragon column. He is brave and dignified. In the fragments describing chivalry, bright red occupies an absolute dominant position. The costumes of the characters such as the remnant sword, the flying snow and the moon are all red, which blends with the less dark scene space to form a fiery tone, giving the audience a strong visual impact. For example, if the moon vows to avenge its master, it will be a life-and-death battle with Xue Fei in the Populus euphratica forest. In this scene, Zhong Jian, a fast-moving opponent, is killed, and the blood looks at the world, making the picture and space turn red, which is quite shocking. In terms of hearing, Hero also raised the sound effects of martial arts films to a new height. The soundtrack of the film is Tan Dun, a famous musician. He no longer emphasizes the strong exaggeration of sword, fist and flying like previous martial arts films. On the contrary, the protagonist's dubbing and onomatopoeia are quite restrained. They pay more attention to the artistic conception of "long" and "far" and emphasize the texture of sound. Fully accommodate all kinds of expressive details: not only drums, pianos, violins by Ezzat and Paalmann, but also all kinds of natural sounds in martial arts scenes. What is expressed after these restraint has opened the world of "ears". For example, facing the picture, the background sound is as quiet as a clear lake. In the waving clothes and the bass of the drum, the sharp sound of the sword through the air matches the sound of the characters prancing. The trill of the gun and sword after collision is very tough and textured. Impressively, in order to describe the accuracy of Jet Li's swordsmanship, he swiped his sword horizontally, from splitting the bamboo pen to changing the pronunciation of the pen tip. There is also a sword play in Jiuzhaigou, where people step on the calm water, sword breaking the surface, and the ripples are shaken, and people jump out of the water and enter the air in their ears.
The film industrialization mode brought by Hero is also quite enlightening. "Hero" presents a set of market-oriented film operation paradigm which is different from the previous domestic film operation mode, but fully conforms to the commercial law. Two months after the release of Hero, the domestic box office reached 240 million yuan. Undoubtedly, Hero has achieved unprecedented commercial success in domestic films. To some extent, "Hero" is a milestone in China's film industrialization, and it has rich enlightenment significance for the development of China's martial arts film which combines art and commerce.