Well... gosh...

Saw Hero yesternight and holy crap.

It is a truly beautiful film, a stunningly beautiful film. The use of colour and scenery are amazing, as is the fight choreography (courtesy of Wei Tung, fight coordinator for films like Hitman and Bulletproof Monk). The entire cast are excellent, with Tony Leung Chiu Wai (Broken Sword) and Maggie Chung (Flying Snow) particularly impressive.

So what's it about? Well, the Nameless Warrior (Jet Li) has killed three assassins from the Zhao province who are out to get the King of the Qin province (Daoming Chen). No one has come within 100 paces of the King in 3 years (since Snow and Broken sword tried to assassinate him), and so the Nameless stranger sits 100 paces from the King and tells him how he killed the assassins. With each story, the king lets him move a little closer. But then the King starts to doubt Nameless's story, and so each tale is retold, with a different predominant colour and from a different point of view.

Not to labour a point, but this really is a beautiful film, with brilliantly underplayed performances by the entire cast and I'll tell you what, no matter which version of the story she's in, Moon( Ziyi Zhang) just gets done over. The soundscape is also well done, with a great score by Dun Tan and - stop smirking Tim and Charlotte - a crisp foley track that has the arrows whistling past your head and thudding satisfyingly into walls and swords whining through the air. It's breathtaking. And, yes, maybe sometimes the visuals are favoured over the narrative, but that's because the visuals are just so bloody beautiful. And, yes, they fly through the air and bounce of water, but that's a cultural thing, and you've got to accept it.

Rating: Five beautifully choreographed fight sequences out of five.