Hero Talk

With the upcoming release of Hero in theaters this week, the U.S. seems to be abuzz about Zhang Yimou, the director of the film. In December, with any luck, we will see the release of Zhang Yimou's "The House of Flying Daggers", a martial arts film set during the Tang Dynasty. It received wide acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival this year, and I fully expect it to do well.

Heroes and Daggers: Zhang Yimou and Andy Lau

I hope that Hero does well at the box office this weekend. I enjoyed Hero much more than Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and I suspect that the general American audience will as well, even if they do not understand the historical backdrop of the film. While Hero was the biggest grossing movie in China, it would be foolish to expect it to break records in America, particularly since it appears that Miramax has NOT learned from their mistakes on Spirited Away (Japan's best grossing movie) on how to market foreign films.