This is my favorite Andrew Lau movie hands down. Maybe it's because I love comic books or something, but this film really appeals to me. It's very dark and moody with beautiful fantasy action. Loaded with interesting characters, wild special effects and a decent amount of martial arts. This is one of those grand fantasy movies where the line flying and special effects didn't bother me or detract from the movie, in fact they were necessary and enhanced the experience entirely. While I do dig "Storm Riders" and "The Duel", this will always be the one that stands out the most to me. Truly epic. This should have been a trilogy. Just about as cool as "Star Wars". I'm just sayin'.

STUFF THAT KICKS ASS: Ninjas with elemental super powers. Classic. Man with no arms who kicks like a hell raiser. Classic as well. Showdown on the statue of liberty that leaves the old girl looking like she got mugged by the jolly green giant. Wild, just wild.

MY CLOSING STATEMENTS BEFORE I GO GET SOMETHING TO EAT: This movie rocks and will appeal to fans of comics, fantasy and various old school classics.

Once upon a time in 1914 China, Hero (Ekin Cheng) is accepted as the disciple of martial arts master Pride (Anthony Wong). When he comes home to tell the news to his proud parents, he finds everybody slaughtered. Hero's dad, a journalist, wrote a piece that pissed off the white opium traders, so they ordered the massacre--signed and all, very gangster-style. So it's up to Hero to avenge his family. He tracks the boss (played by an uncredited Paul Fonoroff, or at least a guy that looks a lot like him) and beheads the mudda in front of witnesses, including the weasely Bigot (played by HK's favourite heavie, Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong). That makes Hero a wanted man, so he flees to the USA leaving behind his gay brother Sheng (Jerry Lamb) and pregnant wife Jade (Kristy Yeung).

Cut to the present days (that's 1930 to you), with Sheng and Hero's son Sword (Nicholas Tse) arriving to USA in search of their long-lost bro and daddy. Now go grab some paper and pencil, and pay attention: from now on, the tale will be told thru a series of flashbacks. But don't worry. Some critics complained that the episodic format was "too convoluted". Not true. What makes things confusing is the fact that the main characters don't age a day, never change their clothes and keep the exact same haircut over an interval of 16 years! Bigot, who appears in all phases of the story, wears basically the same outfit from 1914 to 1930. Sheng, another key character, gets to be thirty-something with the exact baby-face from the beginning! Only Hero shows signs of aging thru white highlights. But then, maybe he just came from a fancy hairdresser.

Moving on: while Sword searches for dad (and Sheng, for his former homo lover), the tale of the man called Hero is told by three different characters. Monk Luohan (Ken Lo) starts the saga recalling the days when he and Hero landed on Ellis Island, and were promptly sent to do slave labor on a coal mine. Turns out that the mine's overseer is that dirty bastich Bigot. He recognizes Hero as the one who made his former China boss a foot shorter, so things start to get hairy. Again framed for murder (and this time it's not clear if he really killed someone), Hero has to run and hide again. This time he's aided by another pupil of Master Pride, Shadow (played by Deon Lam, voiced by Jordan Chan), an armless warrior who wears a mask and moves like The Flash on speed.

(BTW, this segment marks the return of fan fave Yuen Biao as the boss of the China Hotel. Hi there Yuen, nice to see you again! We know that you're more interested in playing golf than making movies, but hey, we miss you big boy!)

Now it's time for Sheng to tell the second part of the story, from the point when he and Jade, still preggers of Sword, came to NY to look for Hero. They find him, but the trio's happiness is short-lived. Five japanese ninjas (played by chinese actors) also arrive in New York in order to track and kill the two remaining disciples of Master Pride. This part recalls The Storm Raiders, also directed by Andrew Lau, and is pure eye candy. The super-ninjas wear Kato-like uniforms and have powers that grant 'em command over the earth, water and fire (the fire ninja is played Sam Lee Chan-Sam, who looks a lot like the live action version of Woody Woodpecker!). A CGI-filled fight ensues and the ninjas have their asses whooped by Hero and Shadow. But that's not the end. One of the ninjas is Mu (Shu Qi, this time on a serious and somber role). Mu gets the hots for Hero, who's faithful to Jade. The ninja leader Jin (Mark Cheng) wants to marry Mu, but she's not interested. Jin gets all riled up and does a bad deed that will change Hero's life once again. Oh yeah, Sword is born along with a twin sister, who's promptly forgotten by the screenwriters.

After seeing all sort of bad things happening to the ones he loved, Hero finds out that his karma is ruled by a death star (not THE Death StarT; just a generic death star of the astronomical kind), and is doomed to spend the rest of his days alone. Very sad, indeed. To hammer the point home, the sky gets dark and black stormy clouds appear at the exact moment Hero get this piece of information. How subtle.

Back to 1930, a.k.a. the present day. Sword and Sheng find Shadow and his daughter Kate (Grace Yip on a minuscule role and dressed like a man). Shadow tells us the last part of the tale, involving an weird duel with Pride and last-minute villain Invincible (Francis Ng) throwing water at each other. That sounds stupid in writing but it's exciting on the screen, trust me. Oh, and Master Pride gives Hero the Chinese Secret. I have no idea of what the Chinese Secret is, but it must be something important cause they spent a lot on special effects in that sequence. AT LAST Sword and Hero meet (it's a sad moment) and, to put the icing on the cake, Invincible faces Hero during a final duel atop a CGI Statue of Liberty. This moment is pure live-action Dragon Ball, and when Invincible breaks his sword and opens his arms. man alive!!! His pose alone is enough to take anime geeks into Otaku Nirvana!

I liked this movie better than Storm Riders, but the story leaves a lot of loose ends. The fate of Sword's sister, for example. She's kidnapped by Bigot seconds after her birth, and the only way to know what the heck happened to her is to bully Andrew Lau into making AMCH 2.

This review was based on the brazilian edition by China Video, a monstrosity that crams Universe's widescreen transfer and Yeon Sang's fullscreen version on the same side. There's also the making of and some trailers, making this one a pretty crowded disc. And that's a problem. The high compression rate cause some visible pixelation during the action-oriented scenes, and this sucks. Who needs a fullscreen version anyway? Oh yeah, Joe "me no like them black bars" Public. Stupid Joe "black bars cut image yes they do" Public. Because of things like that, sometimes I miss the days when DVDs were made for the richer elite, and Joe Public had no say about movie formats. Heck, anyone who prefers fullscreen over OAR is stupid, period!

About AMCH?

AMCH is like dreaming. Walking on a street of a big city knowing the definition of gravity...and than suddenly...

Hero tracks down the his parents murderers and extracts revenge on them. But this cause Hero to become a wanted man in his homeland so he flees to America, leaving behind his Wife Jade and his friend Sheng Lo.

The film jumps forward to 1930 as Sheng Ho arrives in New York with Hero's son, Sword. Searching New York for his Father, Sword finds Luohan, a monk who sailed to American with Hero.

Luohan retells the story of how he and Hero became friends and endured the hardships of working in a mining camp called Steel Blue Canyon, which happens to be owned by the same company that had been involved with the murder of Hero's family.

When two of the company's foremen are found dead, another foreman, Bigot captures Hero and tortures him by burying him alive in the ground. Luohan tries to free Hero but gets attacked by the other foremen.

Suddenly, Hero's clan brother, Shadow appears. He frees Hero and together they both disappear. Luohan flees and disappears into New York's Chinatown.

Sheng Lo continues the tale, telling Storm of the day that his Mother and himself came to New York to find Hero. Their reunion is happy and sweet, with Hero finding out that his wife is pregnant with twins.

The story is then continued by Shadow. Shadow had come to bring Hero home because of a threat against their Teacher, Master Pride.

The rivalry between the two clans comes to a head when, after the death Master Pride, Hero must now fight with the Japanese Master, Invincible to see who will become the new holder of the China Secret.

I know the plot description here seems really really confusing, but when you watch the movie its not that confusing.

The one thing I noticed off the back when watching this movie is that it looks beautiful. The opening scenes take place in China with snow falling to the ground, it looks like a dream.

I've read a lot of reviews of people complaining about the lack of fighting in MCH, and that there's to much talking. I think there's a prefect blend in here. The fighting in MCH takes the backstage to allow the story of a Son searching for his father to take center stage. And its a good story.

One thing I'm not liking about the modern HK movies is the CGI fighting. Yes, it looks cool and all but its not right! It just isn't.

One thing I have to comment on is the end fight. It rocked! This fight is what the Statue of Liberty fight in X-Men should have been. 2 guys with super-powers blowing stuff up!

Any ways, Man Called Hero is a great movie. Way better then Storm Riders (MCH is supposedly a sequel to SR) The cinematographer alone should make you want to watch it.

Again, innovative ideas in terms of special effects are incorporated, since The Storm Riders was such a big hit in Hong Kong.

The story was average, with a couple of subplots, but it was not bad. It kept you watching it to the end, so you know how and it ends. Ekin Cheng plays the character Hero because he looked like him in real life apparently. He did a good job in acting his role. There were about 5 or more fights scenes in this movie, but not all were that impressive nor with special effects (e.g. some were ground fighting). Wire fu was used to show the innovation of movements in the fights. Apparently Hero could fly, which is not very realistic in real life, but believable when making a movie of purpose, setting, and background. The best fight scene in the movie was the Statue of Liberty fight. Ekin and his opponent have a duel with their swords on top of the statue. Now that's cool, and has to be seen to remember it!

The contents of the movie are mixed up as there is lots: action, martial arts, swordplay, a bit of romance and drama, eye candy, action fantasy, etc. Buy this movie if you liked The Storm Riders and Dragon Ball Z style of action and special effects. I will not give this film a high mark because there's not much action, but anyway you may think differently once you've watched it!

The downside first: the plot is - if anything - even more fragmented than that of STORMRIDERS and overpopulated with minor characters that come from and go to nowhere in particular. Actors of the caliber of Francis Ng and Hsu Chi are wasted once again in too many subplots that are thrown in for good - or bad - measure. One of the most central plot threads, with "Hero Hua" searching for his daughter, goes for naught entirely - I just guess it's reserved for a possible sequel. And then there's Ekin Cheng: I had a big laugh when, in the "Making Off", Anthony Wong actually says Ekin was born to play Hero because of his hair style! Francis Ng is a better poser there, saying that Ekin played well - and without so much of a blink in the eye. Well, to readers of this ng it will be no big surprise to hear he doesn't play the role well; as usual, he doesn't play at all. He just strikes the familiar dignified-yet-sensitive pose throughout the entire movie, much as he did in STORMRIDERS and quite a sizeable number of other movies I have chosen to forget. Why Wong and Lau have settled for this acting NIL is beyond me - there are other popular singers in HK that are better actors. Even Aaron Kwok would have done better! And hey - Anthony Wong gets to stroking his beard, which is the only acting he does here.

On the upside, I must admit some of the plot threads are actually kind of interesting (the one with the ninjas, even if not fully developed), and the special effects have improved a lot since STORMRIDERS: while not perfect (water and fire remain familiar problems for CGI), they are certainly the equal of, say, THE MUMMY. The "Statute of Liberty" fight at the end is certainly an eyeful (I just loved the idea of that thing being reduced to rubble, so I gave the scene an immediate encore). The photography has a lot of gimmicks to offer, which - for the most part - unfortunately are just that: gimmicks. However, the visual style is more appealing than in STORMRIDERS, the characterization is slightly better (For one thing, they have done with one ham - Sonny Chiba - less!), the plot slightly less pretentious (though there is anti-Western and anti-Japanese propaganda to boot) and, what is most important - the damn' thing doesn't last a full 2 hours. If that's enough for you, then seek A MAN CALLED HERO out. It certainly was enough for me.