Excellent but underrated film

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

As a t'ai chi player, I watched this film hoping to see a lot of t'ai chi (I'd already started running scenarios in my head where the brash young Jet Li learns t'ai chi from Michelle Yeoh). In this respect, and only in this respect, I was disappointed, as this is not a t'ai chi film but a story about how t'ai chi came to be. In every other respect, I was supremely satisfied. This is first class wuxia, alternating crazy fights with goofy humour, with a little tragedy and philosophy thrown in. Of course this mix will probably be insufferable to anyone who isn't into wuxia, but if you like the kind of martial arts films where combatants call out the name of the move they're about to do, you'll love this. Incidentally, you'll notice the inspiration for a fight in Charlie's Angels in one of the early scenes: "And this one's called knocking you on the head."

This is one of the top 10 worst movies I've seen and probably in top 5 when it comes to fighting movies. The plot is really unoriginal and boring, most characters are pretty linear and dull. The fighting is so- so, very cheesy and you can see a lot of wires around. The movie starts somewhat nice, but it gets worse and worse. It's not worth more than 6/10, but I give it less in order to balance things since it was rated pretty high by a lot of people that clearly haven't seen too many good movies, especially from this category *sigh* Yes, Jet Li does play in this movie, but that doesn't mean it's a great one. I had plenty more fun watching Lone Wolf staring Chuck Norris to be honest :) This movie is a disappointment to the genre and it makes the Shaolin monks look pretty bad overall.

As children, Junbao and Chin Bo were put together in the monastery to help each other learn. Over they years they became great friends and great fighters to the point where Chin Bo is entered into an internal tournament to see who from all the students will progress. During the fight Chin Bo's opponent cheats, enraging Bo and causing him to beat his opponent with a savagery that is unbefitting a monk. Kicking out for this, Chin Bo and Junbao find themselves out on the street to fend for themselves. They meet a young woman, Siu Lin, and start to help her out but, after thinking about the future, the two friends go their separate ways – with Chin Bo becoming a soldier and Junbao falling in with Siu Lin and a group of rebels.With Hero currently being touted all over the place as the greatest thing ever, I thought I'd just avoid the multiplex hype and view some older Jet Li films, one of which was Twin Warriors, as it is known in the UK. The film starts with an OK plot but then it starts to fall down a bit as the story widens to include entire armies and so on. The reason it falters as it goes is due to the lack of character in the script; the film is about the lead two but, other than both can fight, one is nice, the other a bit rough, we are not given much to get into and I never really was drawn into the passion, the loss and the conflict in their relationship. The film uses some of the humour that made Fong Sai-Yuk (The Legend) so very enjoyable, but it uses it sparingly at the start and then not at all later on. As a story it is neither as involving nor as funny as it could have been and needed to be to work better for me.Of course this is a problem that can be understood when you consider that the director is better known for his fight choreography than anything else. As such he does well to produce some exciting fights that demonstrate how good wire work can be – only once or twice does he hit a bad note (Junbao's bouncing head butt was more silly than exciting). None of the fights really stand out as being one of the greats, they are often too contrived and and are (surprisingly) rather flatly filmed at times; but they are still enjoyable and are certainly a lot more fun than the stuff that Jet Li has been reduced to in his American films in the past few years. Li shows again here why he became a global star – he makes the wirework look natural and he has great charisma combined with a winning smile and the ability to convey more complex emotions. Yeoh was a big draw for me but I didn't feel she was used very well; action-wise she did well but she didn't have a great character and gradually slips into the shadows when the film comes back to focus on the battle between Li and Shi-hou. Shi-hou is OK but he is so simple – an angry man at heart; this could have been a complex character but Shi-lou makes him too easy to dislike and there is no requirement for us to think about him or feel anything at all. Support is good with the most memorable stuff coming from the rebel comic relief but the dubbing leaves a little to be desired. I'm not a snob – I don't need to see the film in the original language but often it helps with the performances. Sometimes dubbing is OK with this but here I didn't think some of it was very good and they messed with the characters by the manner of their delivery – the Emperor was the worst, he was done by some guy giving a very bad Peter Lorre impression.Overall this is an enjoyable film from a martial arts point of view but it really isn't that great. The fights are mostly well done without any of them really being amazing but the story and characters are all done far too simply to really engage and excite. The story had potential to be emotional and driving but without the characters it didn't work so well – if it had I would have been more involved making the action scenes a lot more exciting and dramatic.

I got this movie for 5.99 at a video rental sale and probably would've never seen it otherwise. I watched it last night, expecting to turn it off in the middle and go to bed. To my surprise, there was no time in the movie that I felt I COULD turn it off. It was simply a fantastic martial arts movie...Think along the lines of a mixture of Gordon Liu's Master Killer, Michelle Yeoh's Wing Chun and The Iron Monkey. There were several SPECTACULAR fight scenes. But, they didn't put the bank roll all on those: Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh made the movie enjoyable between the elaborate melees.I give this movie an eight out of ten for a regular movie and a TEN for a martial arts movie. If I were Joe Bob, I'd say, "Check 'em out"...