Hero

Hero (or "Heroes", as it SHOULD have been called...maybe even "Superheroes") was a ballyhooed Chinese blockbuster that followed in the golden footsteps of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Both are beautiful, lyrical and impressive technically, but Yimou Zhang's cool-as-a-spinning-swordsman opus tops Ang Lee's remarkable accomplishment...from an aesthetic standpoint anyway. We just wished Zhang's story had stuck to our ribs the way Lee's did. Hero is indeed one of the prettiest pictures ever made though. Jet Li and his co-stars are right on point. The non-stop action is great and the flashback structure allows Zhang to feature a tremendous colour palette. So use your billowing sleeves to deflect a flurry of arrows as the 446th Ellises' Analysis chats about Nameless and the namesake of China and their noble co-stars. Oh, you should know that our brief gab would feel better in your ears if you had coffee in your mouth. Sparkplug Coffee offers a 20% discount if you use our promo code ("top100project"). Also, shoot us a tweet (@moviefiend51 and @bevellisellis) before heading over to "Scoring At The Movies" to hear Ryan talk about sports flicks.