Please beware of spoilers. I usually refrain from adding these, but felt the need to add information which may help others who are looking for what they'd like to see.
There is a definite mix-up between "Hero," and several other movie titles in print. After reading one review, I see now that perhaps this movie is put together by using several other movies, editing them together? It's an intriguing argument, because the plot is so mixed up.
Watching this movie (mine is titled "Rage of the Master,") the plot begins where a disgruntled man enters his brother's martial arts school, with a band of thugs, including some unusually- dressed Thai boxers, wearing yellow shirts and red tighties. But that's where the sub plots wind up flowing all over the cellulite:
The brother's thugs destroy the school; The daughter and brother search for a hero for revenge; The hero isn't allowed to fight in part because of an overbearing mother, who is much stronger than she shows for her son; The Thai boxers take part in a boxing match with audience members; A father's daughter is taken by the brother and thugs because the father bet too much; Another father, so indebted to his master, offers his son to be killed instead of his master's son.
Beyond the first several scenes, I got lost through these different stories within the movie. Whatever happened to the daughter, taken by the gang? And where did the father's son turn up, after being mistaken by the gang as the master's son? The holes were wide and deep, but the plot still takes the same path for the usual Hong Kong martial arts plots: Some entity wrongs another, and the revenge ratchets up as each side gets the other. And the blood flows like cheap wine, freely passed around by the victims.
One person claimed there were 87 bodies to bury in Hero, but I had counted at least 152 (it was so late by the time I rounded third on the body count that I passed out). The only reason I tried counting was that I kept seeing people rolling their eyes in the backs of their heads with blood spewing out their chests, necks, or mouths. Even "Terminator" didn't do this much damage; I don't think the trilogy could even come close to the number of 6-foot holes needed to bury the dead!
"YOU KILLED MY MOTHER; YOU'LL PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD!" says Tiger Wong (played by Jimmy Wang Yu), who had already done in another two handfuls of bad guys, pausing before delivering more havoc after his buttons were pushed too hard and too often. He finally added many corpses to the slaughter, perhaps more than halfway through the film!
The dubbing pretty much sucks raw eggs, but I feel that's part of the joy of some of the martial arts films of its day, when the Asian characters mouths move, while British voices are heard instead. The color is really bad in my DVD pressing (one I had gotten at a true dollar store, where everything costs a buck). And there's a serious crop issue with the transfer being made from a standard TV format (4x3), when the film seems as though it were filmed in letterbox (around 2.35:1). That means that about half the original film is cropped in the transfer. But the framing during filming isn't fully exploited (like the composition of the scenes in Star Wars or Jaws, for instance). So, viewing this movie, you'll see more arms cropped out, than essential characters missing in essential scenes.
My version, a dual-sided DVD (with Snake Crane Secret on the flip) was worth the dollar spent. If you purchase any version over a couple bucks, try to make sure it's widescreen and a direct film transfer from the master negative. Otherwise, just get the cheapest DVD possible, so you won't be too frustrated over paying too much for a badly-pressed DVD, and a poorly-edited film.
The things that made this flick fun enough and worthy enough to recommend (if you buy the cheap DVDs): The ways that people can be killed. One would have thought that the double- pronged fork that Tiger Wong carries would have been a killing tool, but no one even used it as a defensive weapon. But check out what Tiger's mother winds up terminating the thugs with. They're classic weapons!
There is a definite mix-up between "Hero," and several other movie titles in print. After reading one review, I see now that perhaps this movie is put together by using several other movies, editing them together? It's an intriguing argument, because the plot is so mixed up.
Watching this movie (mine is titled "Rage of the Master,") the plot begins where a disgruntled man enters his brother's martial arts school, with a band of thugs, including some unusually- dressed Thai boxers, wearing yellow shirts and red tighties. But that's where the sub plots wind up flowing all over the cellulite:
The brother's thugs destroy the school; The daughter and brother search for a hero for revenge; The hero isn't allowed to fight in part because of an overbearing mother, who is much stronger than she shows for her son; The Thai boxers take part in a boxing match with audience members; A father's daughter is taken by the brother and thugs because the father bet too much; Another father, so indebted to his master, offers his son to be killed instead of his master's son.
Beyond the first several scenes, I got lost through these different stories within the movie. Whatever happened to the daughter, taken by the gang? And where did the father's son turn up, after being mistaken by the gang as the master's son? The holes were wide and deep, but the plot still takes the same path for the usual Hong Kong martial arts plots: Some entity wrongs another, and the revenge ratchets up as each side gets the other. And the blood flows like cheap wine, freely passed around by the victims.
One person claimed there were 87 bodies to bury in Hero, but I had counted at least 152 (it was so late by the time I rounded third on the body count that I passed out). The only reason I tried counting was that I kept seeing people rolling their eyes in the backs of their heads with blood spewing out their chests, necks, or mouths. Even "Terminator" didn't do this much damage; I don't think the trilogy could even come close to the number of 6-foot holes needed to bury the dead!
"YOU KILLED MY MOTHER; YOU'LL PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD!" says Tiger Wong (played by Jimmy Wang Yu), who had already done in another two handfuls of bad guys, pausing before delivering more havoc after his buttons were pushed too hard and too often. He finally added many corpses to the slaughter, perhaps more than halfway through the film!
The dubbing pretty much sucks raw eggs, but I feel that's part of the joy of some of the martial arts films of its day, when the Asian characters mouths move, while British voices are heard instead. The color is really bad in my DVD pressing (one I had gotten at a true dollar store, where everything costs a buck). And there's a serious crop issue with the transfer being made from a standard TV format (4x3), when the film seems as though it were filmed in letterbox (around 2.35:1). That means that about half the original film is cropped in the transfer. But the framing during filming isn't fully exploited (like the composition of the scenes in Star Wars or Jaws, for instance). So, viewing this movie, you'll see more arms cropped out, than essential characters missing in essential scenes.
My version, a dual-sided DVD (with Snake Crane Secret on the flip) was worth the dollar spent. If you purchase any version over a couple bucks, try to make sure it's widescreen and a direct film transfer from the master negative. Otherwise, just get the cheapest DVD possible, so you won't be too frustrated over paying too much for a badly-pressed DVD, and a poorly-edited film.
The things that made this flick fun enough and worthy enough to recommend (if you buy the cheap DVDs): The ways that people can be killed. One would have thought that the double- pronged fork that Tiger Wong carries would have been a killing tool, but no one even used it as a defensive weapon. But check out what Tiger's mother winds up terminating the thugs with. They're classic weapons!
