The film is stunningly beautiful, indeed, but don't forget, it's an eloge, or rather a hymn to rising Chinese superpower that must necessarly destroy all enemies by raison d'état: the emperor - even the most benevolent emperor - has no other choice than destroy each of them, even if they recognize his power. Just watch the very end of the film. - No wonder that it was so much celebrated in China (and that it received the largest budget ever given to a Chinese film): Zhang Yimou explicitly acknowledges in an interview it had been made by state order and to rivalize with the much more transcendental and individual Tiger & Dragon.

Read a very good critic by a Chinese author: http://www.harvardindependent.com/news/2004/09/30/Arts/Hero-Of.The.Revolution-739723.shtml

Independently of this, thank you very much for uploading the film!

THANKS for the share! By the way, how is the quality of the AVI ?

Vah Vus PM-ed to me:

The link you gave is wrong or dead:
http://www.harvardindependent.com/news/2004/09/30/Arts/Hero-Of.The.Revolution-739723.shtml
Can you please update the link or upload the text somewhere else? Thanks
for making a point anyway. Regards!

In fact, I checked it and found it dead. However, I searched for it, and it was still present in Google's backup memory. Therefore I apologize for copying it here in all its length, but otherwise it could not be found, and I think it offers a very good complementary material to the understanding of the actual political background of the film.

Hero of the Revolution
Movie Review: Dir. Zhang Yimou Hero
The Harvard Independent Online, 9/30/2004
By Shelley Jiang

Considering that the movie revolves around martial arts, war, and one of the most controversial rulers in China's long history, there is surprisingly little blood in Hero. Death, when it occurs, happens in slow-motion sequences, swathes of color, undeniably gorgeous cinematography, and equally haunting music. And therein lies the problem.

Many reviewers have gushed over the lush, saturated colors, the sweeping vistas of China's hinterlands, and, of course, the talents (martial and otherwise) of Hong Kong's Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, and Tony Leung. Hero does indeed succeed as spectacle. The movie revolves around bold color themes that alternate with each twist in the plot, from deep red to delicate blue to pure white. With Christopher Doyle (who also worked on Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love) as cinematographer almost every shot of the Hero is perfect enough to be a work of art in its own right. Director Zhang Yimou pays homage to the ancient arts of China as well, with graceful intertwining of wu shu, music, and calligraphy.

The movie tells the tale of an assassination attempt upon Qin Shihuang (Chen Daoming), "first emperor," who united China for the first time more than 2000 years ago, but not without wars, oppression, and widespread unpopularity (hence all the assassins). A nameless warrior (Jet Li) comes to court, supposedly to claim his reward after killing the emperor's most skilled enemies. He regales the emperor with a tale of his victory, but Qin Shihuang exposes his story as a lie, and the warrior unravels variation after variation, spinning each time closer to the truth. The storytelling and flashbacks sometimes lag in pace, but as with all things in Hero, the plot is basically an excuse for Zhang Yimou to fill the screen with his intoxicating images and colors.

Despite all the cinematic beauty, Hero rings hollow, at best an homage to power and tyranny. The film is plagued with a lack of compassion and heart. There is grief, there is death, but all the artistry seems designed to distance us from the violence occurring on screen. A massacre of students at the calligraphy school is shot in sumptuous vermilion, scored by twanging arrows, but not one drop of blood reminds us that these are real people dying. War and death are aestheticized into billowing fabrics and a mesmerizing violin played by Itzhak Perlman and the audience sees an intricate dance instead of a loss of life. The movie ends on a chilling note, an affirmation of the rights of the ruler to wage endless war, as long as he deems it to be for the good of "the whole nation"-the phrase tian xia written into the sand dunes at the end. Not only do the Chinese words bring to mind a land (tian xia, "under heaven") ruled solely by emperors, who are the sons of heaven, but the mistaken English translation of "Our Land" begs the question whose land? Clearly not those who died.

This may seem like over-analysis, an unnecessary mixture of art and politics. Yet a movie about Qin Shihuang can hardly avoid questions of power and totalitarianism. He is remembered not only for his accomplishments in uniting a vast nation, but also for conscripting millions for his building projects (Great Wall, anyone?), purging dissidents and scholars, burning books, suppressing marginal cultures, and generally being a tyrannical, unpleasant fellow. As such, Hero's depiction of an emperor with a contested place in history cannot avoid its historical and political implications.

Whatever we may say about history and rulers two millennia years dead, Hero's contemporary resonance is far more troubling. The film's message that war in the name of national unity can be sanctioned (and epic) plays directly into the Chinese Communist Party's agenda. The rhetoric of the movie's closing lines comes uncomfortably close to an open endorsement for the government's "One China" policy on Taiwan - especially if war should be the outcome. With China staging war games off the coast of Taiwan every time the island holds an election, and escalating assertions of independence from the island, open conflict doesn't seem as unlikely as some may suspect. The Chinese government is all too familiar with the practice of sacrificing its people for what it calls the greater good of the nation, and it hardly ever slows to take a body count. If as Hero claims, Qin Shihuang is one of the heroes of the movie, then Hero is also affirms both the tyrants who came before him and those to follow.

Zhang Yimou's previous movies, including Red Sorghum and the masterpiece To Live, challenged the accepted narratives of the Communist Party and banned him from the Chinese market. Now, it seems, he has done an about-face and not only produced a government-sanctioned film (China's official entry to the Academy Awards), but one that supports their totalitarian vision. What we have here is a beautiful bouquet-laid at the feet of those reigning in power.

Shelley Jiang (sjiang@fas) '06 lives in Dunster House. The only totalitarian regime she supports is her own as editor of Let's Go: China.

(source of this text:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:aZCgL4ls7K0J:www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx%3FArticleID%
3D8954+%22Considering+that+the+movie+revolves+around+martial+arts%
22&hl=hu&gl=hu&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a)

Ooops... I'm sorry for rendering the screen so wide with this last message of mine. It was done probably by the long url at the end, as this editor seems not to break complete words, and it regards it as one complete word. I beg the admins to eliminate it!

@ Admins: Thank you very much for the correction!

It looks good!
Can anyone please tell me how to get the English subtitles to work?
I tried 3 readers - No problem with the sound and picture bu sub-titles don't start!

I SpanishBoy, i use BS Player, it works great... and very accurate :)

Thank you vidra for such elaborate post, very good of you!

To Witchfinder, hi mate, it is moderate resolution and decent playback quality .. a few scenes show artifacts, but other than that its nice quality :)

Cheers everyone

Reuploaded:

http://rapidshare.com/files/111055876/ZhangYimouTheHero.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/111055892/ZhangYimouTheHero.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/111055863/ZhangYimouTheHero.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/111055851/ZhangYimouTheHero.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/111055872/ZhangYimouTheHero.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/111055862/ZhangYimouTheHero.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/111055865/ZhangYimouTheHero.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/111055897/ZhangYimouTheHero.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/111055856/ZhangYimouTheHero.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/111055877/ZhangYimouTheHero.part10.rar