According to China News Agency, Zhang Yimou has stayed in the States for several more days after the Oscar night. He said he was talking to people from MiramAxe about what HERO's promotion went wrong (There is nothing wrong with it because MiramAxe did nothing). He has also talked to several members from American Film Institute and voting member of the Academy Awards. He is trying to figure out the hit and miss of his film.

Click here for the transcript of HERO review by Orvar Säfström

Click here to watch his review online

HERO has hit Swedish theater on Friday. Film critic Orvar Säfström from Swedish TV program Filmkrönikan has given the film full mark, five critic's chairs, and has further commented on MiramAxe forcing director Zhang Yimou to cut the film into 98 minutes. Click here to watch his review online (Real Video, length: 5:30)

Click here for the HERO page by Filmkrönikan

HERO's quest for the Oscar has ended with nothing in hand. Thanks to MiramAxe for doing nothing! Congratulations to Germany for its NOWHERE IN AFRICA.

In the name of the MiramAxe authority, people who live in the following regions may not see the movie until November 2003, or may not see the movie until an undetermined date, or may not see the movie on the big screen:

17 reviews from both professional film critics and moviegoers have been linked at the HERO page.

Click here

According to Nanfang Daily, everyone, except director Zhang Yimou, producer Zhang Weiping and producer Bill Kong, has cancelled their plan of attending the Academy Awards Ceremony. The decisions were made yesterday afternoon right after the Iraqi War broke out. Peace, is the message being carried by HERO, and ...

Click here for the HERO page by MiramAxe

It is a standard page with minimum amount of information. Errors: two other writers, Wang Bin and Li Feng, are not credited; producer Zhang Weiping and Dou Shoufang are not credited; Jet Li is not one of the producers. It shows the film will be "in theaters - Winter 2003". So no matter what HERO does at the Oscar, people will forget about it by then. Stupid!

Thanks to Toan Mail, Peter Chan and Wei Han

According to Sina.com, Dede Nickerson, MiramAxe's Asian consultant and the Beijing Representative, said she would travel to Los Angeles on March 20 to arrange the promotion for HERO. But isn't that too late? The voting will end today! Any way, according to Nanfang Daily, director Zhang Yimou, Jet Li, Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, producer Zhang Weiping and producer Bill Kong will all go to Los Angeles. But there are only four tickets for HERO,  and according to the paper, MiramAxe was doing its best to look for extra tickets. Yea, right!

Review: HERO (Positive, 5 discs, Minor Spoilers) by Pat (Note: there is no cello performance but a violin solo)

Review: HERO - A Thing of Beauty (Positive, No Spoilers) by Albert Lanier (Note: It's Zhang Ziyi not Zhang Yiyi)

Review: HERO (Positive, 4 stars, Minor Spoilers) by Jules Brenner

Thanks to an anonymous reader

Hong Kong's Sing Pao reports MiramAxe just pushed the released date of SHAOLIN SOCCER back again, for the fourth time, and shifted the effect onto HERO. MiramAxe's bid for the Oscar's Best Foreign Language Film category was CITY OF GOD. But after HERO was "unexpectedly" nominated for the award which was missed by CITY OF GOD, HERO has suddenly become very bankable. It is still up to MiramAxe to decide whether and how to bank it. If Sing Pao's report was true, HERO would probably be released in April in North America which was originally reserved for SHAOLIN SOCCER. According to Greg's Previews, the new release date for SHAOLIN SOCCER is August 8, 2003. I just checked MiramAxe's official site. HERO is still not in and SHAOLIN SOCCER remains at the "Upcoming Films" section.

I am hoping this information can answer some questions many readers has asked.

From left to right: DVD box, DVD disc, VCD box, VCD disc. (Click on the images to see the large version)

Photo: Southern City

 

DVD
Disc type: DVD-5 (single-side and single-layer)	Disc type: DVD-9 (single-side and double-layer)
Number of disc: 1	Number of disc: 1 (?)
Video format: NTSC Color	Video format: NTSC Color (?)
Sound system: Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound	Sound system: Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound (?)
Screen ratio: 1 : 2.35	Screen ratio: 1 : 2.35 (?)
Length: 98 minutes	Length: 120 minutes (?)
Language: Mandarin Chinese	Language: Mandarin Chinese
Subtitle: Simplified Chinese / Traditional Chinese / English (US)	Subtitle: Simplified Chinese / Traditional Chinese / English (US)
Feature: HERO (Theatrical Version)	Feature: HERO (Extended Version) (?)
Documentary of Making of the Film	Documentary of Making of the Film (?)
Release date: February 20, 2002	Release date: February 27, 2002 (?)
Released by:	Released by:
Guangdong Face Audio and Video Production Co. Lt.	Guangdong Face Audio and Video Production Co. Lt.
Guangdong WeiKai Audio and Video Production Co.	Guangdong WeiKai Audio and Video Production Co.
Distributed by: Guangzhou Audio and Video Publishing House	Distributed by: Guangzhou Audio and Video Publishing House
VCD
Number of disc: 1
Video format: Pal Color (?)
Sound system: Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound (?)
Screen ratio: 1 : 2.35 (?)
Length: 98 minutes
Language: Mandarin Chinese
Subtitle: Simplified Chinese
Feature: HERO (Theatrical Version)
Release date: February 20, 2002
Released by:
Guangdong Face Audio and Video Production Co. Lt.
Guangdong WeiKai Audio and Video Production Co.
Distributed by: Guangzhou Audio and Video Publishing House

I am receiving tons of e-mails asking me all kinds of the HERO DVD and VCD everyday. Here are some answers based on what I know:

The DVDs and VCDs, released or will be released, have more than one origins. So far, there are distributors from the mainland China and Hong Kong selling official discs, which are becoming available today or in the near future.

In the mainland China, the discs are released by Face and WeiKai, and the distributor is Guangdong Audio and Video Publisher. DVD and VCD from them have been promised to be released today and there is no evidence to suggest the release has been delayed.

In Hong Kong, the discs are released by Edko and are possibly distributed by Joy Sales. So far, only VCD is released and DVD

 has been pushed back. A reader of this site, cliff r, has e-mailed SensAsian.com, one of the online disc sellers only offering Hong Kong version of VCD, concerning this matter. The answer he got confirmed such delay. Looks like Edko will not released the DVD until the film has been released globally. I suspect this is yet another influence from MiramAxe, which does not want DVD from Asia to "spoil" the theatrical release in North America. But, what if MiramAxe just kept pushing the theatrical release back again and again, would the DVD be held forever? I hope not.

There is also another version of VCD originated from Thailand currently available on the web, which I could not verify its authenticity. Many discs offered on Ebay are pirated products.

Nanfang Daily just posted the box and disc design of HERO DVD and VCD.

From left to right: DVD box, DVD disc, VCD box, VCD disc. (Click on the images to see the large version)

These DVD and VCD are only for distribution in the Mainland China. Other regions will get their own designs.

Winner list of the 53rd Berlin International Film Festival has been released this afternoon. HERO has been awarded with Alfred Bauer Prize, in memory of the Berlinale's founder, for the film's particular innovation. Another Chinese language film MANG JING (BLIND SHAFT) by director Li Yang received The Silver Berlin Bear for an artistic contribution.

Click here for the complete winner list (PDF)

"... The nod for Zhang Yimou's all-star martial arts epic HERO reveals Harvey Weinstein's one major awards campaign miscalculation this year. If Miramax had released the film in 2002, the studio could have been looking at widespread nominations on par with CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. Instead, the studio threw all of its foreign category muscle behind CITY OF GOD, obviously counting on HERO not getting nominated, as the film is currently slated for release this coming November--in obvious striking distance for consideration for *next* year's non-Foreign Language Film Oscar categories. But now that HERO did get the nod this year, it's ineligible to compete for any Oscars next year. Ironically, with CITY OF GOD not making this cut, that film is now eligible for widespread consideration for next year's Oscars, having been released domestically in January."

Click here to read Michael Dequina's comments on all nominations of this year's Oscar.

Thanks to Lily Chan

Qin Lixin, a top executive of Beijing New Picture, which produced the film, told Yang Cheng Wan Bao he was confidence that MiramAxe will promote HERO well at the Oscar even though he knew nothing about MiramAxe's plan. Meanwhile HERO's box-office revenue has surpassed 250 million yuans (US$30.2) and is doing very well in the rest of Asia.

What is the big deal with the Oscar? Fame, money, glory but not art. In a previous editorial (click here), I wrote: "the Oscar is no longer the award for the best of cinema, but the award for the best among the most popular, or sometimes, just the most popular." CHICAGO's 13 nominations have prove I was right. Those folks who are running the awards have become more and more conservative. They are afraid of praising the most artistic and the most creative, because art and creativity often mean unpopular. After all, the Oscar is run as a business and showing people the most popular is vital to the business' survival.

Being popular is often the only criteria for being good and therefore increasing the chance of joining the gigantic Oscar party. HERO got nominated not only because it was from a good director but also because it is, at least potentially, popular. A nomination will transfers to revenue in the box-office and an award will add more dollars on to it. Director Zhang Yimou knows this. He left Berlin and headed for America even though announcing winners of the Berlin Film Festival is still days away. After made so many films which are only popular among artistic filmgoers, Zhang decided to make HERO in order to reach the "mainstream" audiences and so far, he succeeded, in Asia.

On the nominees' list, the name MiramAxe has been mentioned so many times that I have started to suspect my eyes were not functioning well. Once the spearhead for promoting the most creative talent of cinema, MiramAxe has been transformed to the best businessman for marketing films at the Oscar. Those films from MiramAxe are all good but they are designed primary for the Oscar and money not the moviegoers. Because MiramAxe is holding so many nominees, winners and losers will be pre-selected by the powerful marketing machine from this subsidiary of Disney.

Still, MiramAxe remains at the top spot of the most hated Hollywood studios amongst fans of non-English language films. Re-editing, bad dubbing, and replacing soundtracks are just some example of what this studio has been doing for foreign films. In one of its top executives' word - "to make the sh*t work".

MiramAxe was the most aggressive one among studios competing for the international distribution rights of HERO but since it has got it, nothing has been done to promote the film, except saying a few words and handing out several stills to the press, which really cost nothing.

What will MiramAxe do next? I predict it will do very little. Because a foreign import means nothing to them, compared to the films produced by itself.

During an announcement early this morning in Beverly Hills, HERO has been nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film of the 75th Academy Awards. The film will compete with four other films for the award. They are EL CRIMEN DEL PADRE AMARO (Mexico), THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST (Finland), NOWHERE IN AFRICA (Germany) and ZUS & ZO (The Netherlands). Winner will be announced during the ceremony on March 23rd.

According to Star Daily, only DVD-5 will be released on February 20. DVD-9 will come on February 27.

According to TimeForDVD.com:

DVD-5 is a DVD that is single-sided and single-layered, which holds up to two hours of video and audio (i.e., 4.7 GB of data).

DVD-5 is a DVD that is single-sided and dual-layered, which holds up to four hours of video and audio (i.e., 8.5 GB of data).

Based on information we have so far, the theatrical version of the film is 98 minute long and the extended version, intended only for video release, is about 2 hour long.

Photo: Associated Press

During the 53rd. Berlin International Film Festival, HERO will be openly shown outside of east Asia for the first time.

Other Chinese language films shown during the festival:

MANG JING, ZHOU YU DE HUO CHE (ZHOU YU'S TRAIN), HUI JIA (GOING HOME), TRACES OF THE DRAGON: JACKIE CHAN AND HIS LOST FAMILY (documentary), JIU YUE (OLD TESTAMENT), TIAN XIA WU SHUANG (CHINESE ODYSSEY 2002), XIN XIN (TWO HEARTS), AJI (DREAM CUISINE), KA LA SHI TIAO GOU (KALA, MY DOG!), KINGDOM AND THE BEAUTY, COME DRINK WITH ME, HONG KONG NOCTURNE, INTIMATE CONFESSIONS OF A CHINESE COURTESAN, 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, YAN FEN JIE (THE REMNANT), PTU, INFERNAL AFFAIRS.

Photo: Associated Press

According to Chengdu Evening News, the DVD and VCD will indeed contain the extended version of the film. The theatrical version, in all countries, is 98 minute long, and according to an earlier report, about 20 minute long deleted scenes will be added back to the video.

An administrator of the official forum of FACE (Fei Shi), one of the official video distributors in China, has hinted that the DVD, not the VCD, will contain English subtitle.

According to Beijing Morning Post, the master copy of the film has been handed to the official video distributors Wei Jia and Fei Shi yesterday. The materials being handed over include two cassettes of the beta copy of the film, one audio cassette, and one copy of the subtitle. When being asked what would make the official disc different from any pirated copy, a representative from these two companies answered, "the quality of our disc will be definitely much more superior than those of pirated discs." DVD and VCD will come with two kind of packages, plain and collectable. They will be released in China on February 20 as planned. Please do not purchase pirated DVD or VCD. The quality of those videos just does not deserve your eyes and ears.

The first HERO trailer in QuickTime format is up at French movie site CineMovies. Unfortunately, because the trailer was converted directly from Media Player format, which we have already seen, the quality remains the same.

Trailer: HERO (QuickTime): Hi Res.   Lo Res.

There are also four new stills. (click here)

According to the site, HERO will be released in France on March, 26. This means release dates for other European countries will very likely be in March as well.

Review: HERO (Positive, Very Minor Spoilers)

Review: BULLETPROOF MONK (Negative, Minor Spoilers)

Click here

Zhang Ziyi CSC has discovered two HERO franchise products in Taiwan.

(Left) An 184-page HERO picture book detailing the making of the film.

(Right) TV dinner with four shrunken HERO poster. You have two options - ribs or chicken drumsticks. The picture show the rib box.

Thanks to Southern Crane

Zhang Yimou has said his next project would be another martial-art film. We know little about it except rumors:

Rumor 1: Qin Shi Huang - a film about the early life of the soon-to-be first emperor of China, who is also the assassinating target in HERO. Cast may include Zhang Ziyi and Korean actress Kim Hee Sun. Korea Picture has reportedly promised to finance the film if Kim was cast. However, Beijing New Picture, which produced HERO, has dismissed the rumor.

Rumor 2: HERO 2 - The sequel of HERO. According to Shanghai Evening Post, Huo Tingxia, the art director of HERO, said Zhang Yimou will make a HERO sequel. Huo is currently working on restoring the interior sets of HERO at Hengdian Film and TV City, where HERO was shot.

Rumor 3: A story about the ordinary people - Also according to Shanghai Evening Post, someone from Beijing New Picture said, it would not be as epic as HERO and would be a real wuxia story about ordinary people. Li Feng, one of the writers of HERO, is working on the script and shooting will likely start this summer. No one has been cast yet.

Here are eight scans from the HERO comic book by Ma Wing-Sing.

We know HERO has been scheduled for a DVD / VCD released one month from today. But giving the incident of the "official bootlegged VCD", I am not so sure the release is 100% guaranteed. Last year, two companies Weijia and Feishi, paid big bucks for the Chinese video distribution rights at an auction (a third company, TCL, jointed their bid but later quit the deal). With HERO's popularity soaring up to the ceiling, managers of these two companies have started to feel the heat. In China, to counterstrike the piracy, a movie is usually released on video only weeks after the first day of theatrical release. But for HERO, there are two full months between the first day of theatrical release and the first day of video release, more than enough for the market being flooded with pirated CDs. The two companies has asked Beijing New Pictures, the Chinese distributor of HERO, for an early video released but was refused. Then quietly, 800,000 set of VCDs containing a bootlegged HERO video, camcorded at a theater, being shipped out of these two companies. Days after the "official bootlegged VCD" showed up, the Ministry of Culture ruled that the VCD is pirated product because before February 20, Beijing New Picture owns all copy rights of HERO. While a forced recall of the VCDs is underway, the two companies have suffered a loss of millions due to the incident. Will the official DVD and VCD being released on time? That is the question.

By the way, neither HERO nor BALZAC ET LA PETITE TAILEUSE CHINOISE won the Golden Globe. Spanish film TALK TO HER got the Best Foreign Language Film Award.

Review Hero (Positive, 4/4, Minor Spoilers) by "Despair"

Review Hero (Positive, Minor Spoilers)

According to Variety, MiramAxe has planned a May release for HERO. (Thanks to Puubs Hiddengarden and Jason Lin) If so, HERO will have a tough battle against movies like the second X-MEN, the second MATRIX and the remake of THE ITALIAN JOB. However, MiramAxe has no longer deserve my trust and I will wait until May.

Meanwhile HERO has been invited to the coming Berlin International Film Festival. (Thanks to Hy Phuong for this one)

According to Chinese media, Korea Picture has promised to finance QIN SHI HUANG if director cast Korean actress Kim Hee Sun. While in Korea promoting HERO, Zhang Yimou has met the manager of Korea Picture and Kim Hee Sun. Zhang has made a TV commercial with Kim before.

But according to a lady working at Zhang Yimou's office, QIN SHI HUANG is only one of several projects Zhang Yimou is developing right now. He has not chosen it as his next film and there is no script. Casting Kim Hee Sun and Zhang Ziyi is just a proposal.

According to an anonymous informer, there will be a lot of similarities between HERO and QIN SHI HUANG. There are all about The First Emperor, but the former focused at the assassins and the latter is about the target of the assassins. Also, one is about first half of his life and the other one is about the second half of his life. "QIN SHI HUANG should be count as a prequel of HERO," said the informer.

Review: HERO (Positive, 9/10, Minor Spoilers) by "Equinox21"

This one really sounds too good to be true, but it is my duty to report it. According to Shanghai Youth, QIN SHI HUANG is the working title of director Zhang Yimou's next project and he wants to cast Zhang Ziyi again. Someone from Hengdian Film and TV City told the paper that HERO's production manager Zhang Zhenyan said they would return to Hengdian in March or April to shoot this new film. Zhang Yimou has confirmed that he is preparing his second martial-art film and it will not be the HERO sequel.

QIN SHI HUANG's name is Ying Zheng. As the ruler of the kingdom of Qin he conquered the other six kingdoms and unified China for the first time in 221 B.C. Later he proclaimed himself as SHI HUANG DI, meaning The First Emperor. Historians call him QIN SHI HUANG DI or QIN SHI HUANG. In HERO, he is the target of assassins from Zhao, the country is about to be conquered by the king.

The palace scenes and all internal scenes in HERO were shot at Hengdian, a gigantic combo of filming facilities and scene park filled with ancient architectures from different periods of China's five thousand year history.

Review: HERO (Positive, Very Minor Spoilers) by "Wang Yi, The Idiot"

Beijing Morning Post reports Beijing New Picture, one of the film's production studios and the Chinese theatrical distributor, has claimed that the DVD and VCD recently released by Wei Jia and Fei Shi are pirated products. Beijing New Picture has announced seeking legal action against these two companies, which purchased the video distribution rights but only paid 70% of the 17.8 million yuans (US$ 2.15) purchasing fee. According to Information Times, an official from the Ministry of Culture said they had ordered the pirated DVD and VCD being confiscated.

In another article by Beijing Morning Post, a clear version of pirated HERO DVD has appeared. The images were duplicated directly from the film rather than from a camcorder.

Tianjin Daily reports the first official VCD has been released in China by Fei Shi, one of the official video distributors. The quality is slightly better than that of other pirated versions but it was still a bootleg shot at a theater, because coughing and other noises can be heard in the background. It got English subtitle (might be recorded in Hong Kong because only Chinese subtitle is attached to the film in the Mainland China) but is still 98 minute long rather than the 2-hour extended version has been promised. Someone from Fei Shi said this was because they had not receive the master copy of the film from Beijing New Picture, the Chinese theatrical distributor. Manager of the other distributor Wei Jia said they were not aware of the release of the VCD. The official DVD and VCD with additional 20 minutes footage are scheduled for a release on February 20th. (Thanks to Max Von Steiner for the tip)

The effect house DFreedomZone, Inc., created by ex-member of ILM, Ellen Poon, did over 250 2-D and 3-D effects for HERO. Here are six examples:

	Soldiers created by cut 'n' paste and shadow of production equipments was erased.
	CG flying arrows and cut 'n' pasted archers.
	Flying arrows and additional buildings were added. Flying Snow (on the back) was made more motion-blur.
	Raindrops were inserted between Nameless and Sky.
	Shots were transformed to black and white and weapons were made brighter for purpose I am not going to reveal right here.
	Real flames were replaced by bigger, brighter and moving CG flames. Shadows were added accordingly.

Two other effect houses The Orphanage and  Animal House also did CG works for HERO

HERO -                     Tuesday, January 14, 2003 (North American Première)

SHAOLIN SOCCER - Saturday, January 11, 2003

                                Saturday, January 18, 2003

Thanks to Sheila Carrington and Ardent Quach

Review: HERO (Positive, Minor Spoiler), by Andrew Sun (Thanks to Nathan Layman and iRon|(V)oNK|eY)

Review: HERO (Positive), by Derek Elley

Review: HERO (Mixed, Major Spoilers) by Mike Goodridg - the reviewer has tried tirelessly to find some political content in the film and used CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON as the benchmark.

Thanks to Nathan Layman

According to Yangtze Evening News, when being released on DVD and VCD, HERO will be extended to about 2 hours from 98 minutes, the theatrical length.

Sina.com reports, by yesterday, HERO has collected 16.3 million yuans (almost US$ 20 million) in China, including Hong Kong. This record was made by just over 300 theaters in dozens of major cities in less than two weeks. In China, a film is usually released in the majors cities first and smaller cities will have their luck later. The first round of released usually last no more than two weeks, during which the film is only shown on big screens. Then it will be moved to small screens to make way for newer release. But since the beginning, HERO has been shown on big and small screens simultaneously, theater managers have refused to remove HERO from the big screens this early.

In the Premiere magazine article (written by Takeshi Oka and Greg Starr), Zhang Ziyi has become the center of the film even though she only played a supporting role:

Article by Premiere (Thanks to Cass Fung)

According to the Wall Street Journal article (written by Karen Mazurkewich), MiramAxe helped financing HERO and a senior VP from MiramAxe is doing publicity for HERO. What an Irony:

Article by Wall Street Journal (scroll-down)

The New York Times article (written by Joseph Kahn), was written based on at least two premises: the real king of Qin is a ruthless conquer who brought nothing but terror to his subjects, and Zhang Yimou gave in to the Chinese government: