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14 comments
10 comments
Rank This Matchup or Comment/Reply Below
on 9/8/2009
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon brought this genre to the masses in the USA, and for a good reason. Hero has more style and better presentation. These movies are just about even when it comes to story and action. My edge goes to Hero.
on 4/12/2010
Definitely Crouching Tiger.
Hero is the masterpiece here.
on 8/10/2010
Slight edge to Crouching Tiger...the women had the much cooler fight scenes.
I found Crouching Tiger's story to be much more engrossing, its characters to be much more believable, and its action to be much more impressive. Hero looked prettier, but that's about it.
on 9/8/2010
Ahh, it's cute that some people prefer Hero (or even liked it). I'm usually all for personal preference, subjectivity in art and entitlement to opinions but sometimes you just gotta notch up the condescension and slam down some black & white. Pffft I say, pffft.
on 1/10/2011
I love both films, from thier plots to thier action scenes. But I like Hero more if only because it deals with a concept I love; what defines a hero?. Crouching Tiger may have the better fight scenes, but Hero has one of my favorite plots ever.
on 4/4/2011
Love CTHD. Not that into Hero. CT is romantic, it's got wonderful choreography, but above everything else, it's got Chow Yun-Fat. Hero's choreography doesn't compare, which is a shame because I'm usually a fan of the choreographer's work. And I'm REALLY not into the message it sends. And I've seen Zhang Yimou do better.
on 7/29/2012
Hero, easily better, though CTHD was great when it came out i watched it recently and it has not aged well. The fighting is great and all but the young chick who happens to have the most screen time is too unsympathetic and then when she is given a chance to change she kills herself and wastes the time of the other leads. Hero's story is so much more relevant and does more to better you as a person and i also like it's use of mise-en-scene so much more
on 10/6/2012
Hero betters you as a person?
on 1/31/2013
I'm all on board with Hero
"Hero betters you as a person?" Yeah, wut?
You mean you guys didn't start volunteering at soup kitchens immediately after you finished watching it? Weird...
on 7/2/2013
I feel like a lot of people misunderstand Hero. CTHD was a fantastic film that I will always remember, but Hero is not by any means a propaganda film
Some people say it encourages the idea that it is best to suffer under a single ruler for the sake of the greater good. While I see how this can be quite a sensitive issue with the politics of China for the past century, but I feel like it's missing the point.
At it's base, Hero is a message about sacrifice. You have to understand that not only is the King of Qin a very real figure, but without him, we would not have China today (it's named after his state). Had Nameless killed him, political disunity would have continued for several more centuries and China would have completely self-destructed. As it is, the Warring States Period is known to be one of the bloodiest and darkest ages of China. This is, of course, no excuse for totalitarianism, but it took this man with such powerful goals to unify China and eventually cause the growth of one of the world's greatest civilizations.
What makes the King of Qin such a difficult character to judge is because he is a terrible ruler. He put Confucian scholars to death, buried people alive, killed thousands by starting the construction of the 10,000 li long wall, destroyed almost all books, and ruled with one of the most brutal fists in ancient history. His reign was so harsh that it collapsed right after he died from Mercury poisoning. People rioted (eventually, the prosperous Han Dynasty was ushered in) But he also was a man of great accomplishments. Regardless of how you judge his character, he not only unified China and stopped political violence (temporarily), but unified the several different languages and ways of conduct. One of the things I loved about Hero was the emphasis on how disconnected people were and how little they were able to communicate. The message of Hero is not about government, but rather about the individual. It is sometimes we, like Nameless, must lay down our swords and sacrifice ourselves for the millions of lives out there. Ever hear "one must die to save a thousand". Regardless of how many people Qin killed in his campaign, several times more would have died had he not conquered them and quelled violence. This is why history remembers him as a great, but horrible and merciless ruler. Consider if Nameless killed the King. What now? Another ruler just takes up the throne, and as shown with Qin's actually death, the state crumbles. More political disunity. I realize I must sound like I am justifying warfare, but had the course of history gone differently, we would not have this incredible civilization now all over the world with over a billion people. This "small" choice really means everything. The film that takes place in a time of a horribly bloody war, is ironically, about Peace. Peace that maybe won't appear today, but someday in the future where people can live happily.
Since I have said so much, I will now keep my actually comparison short. I thought Hero was over the top incredible, with the best use of color I have ever seen and serious plot punch. CTHD was excellent, but the pacing in some scenes is a little off, and part of the desert sequence distracts from the heart of the film--that of a girl who cannot be loyal to anyone she loves, and thus, indirectly kills the only person who could save her (Li Mu Bai) and the woman who gave her more love than her parents ever did (Jade Fox). I will say, however, that I thoroughly enjoyed the desert romance and the poem about the man and the mountain.
Geez, can this thing even count? Just because I wrote a lot about the comparison, shouldn't it count all my comments as just one vote, for Hero? Seems kind of rigged.
on 3/13/2014
Hero because it is shorter, better-paced, has more action, and combines beautiful visuals with a Yojimbo-esque plot.
I give the small edge to Crouching Tiger. I simply saw it first...and it left a more lasting impression.
on 12/17/2015
Crouching, I believe.
on 12/21/2015
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is I bit better because in Hero the story was to repetitive.
on 8/8/2016
Crouching Tiger is a boring film...Hero is superior in every way.
on 5/31/2019
I get why others are drawn to the stylization of Hero, but I far prefer the naturalism and emotionality of CRHD.
