Hero

Herald rating: * * *

Quentin Tarantino knows a good martial-arts flick when he sees one, let alone when he makes one, so take heart from the fact that you're able to see Hero because he applied his considerable muscle to force Miramax to pull it off the shelf where it had lain for a couple of years and put it into cinemas, and now on to DVD.

Devotees of Chinese film will know most of the leading players from their visits to Hollywood - Jet Li, Tony Leung (Infernal Affairs), Zhang Ziyi (from the earlier crossover success, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Hong Kong star Maggie Cheung.

Li takes the lead as a nameless master swordsman of the third century BC, who kills three much-feared assassins and is granted an audience with the King of Qin (Chen Dao Ming).

His Majesty demands more detail, and three versions of each story are offered. Each one has a distinguishing colour (red, green, blue) and each one offers different motivations for the participants' behaviour and actions. Could be patriotism or jealousy or love or political intrigue.

Which is pretty much it, because the attraction of the film lies in the great set-pieces and more of the martial-arts madness a la Crouching Tiger ... and director Zhang Yimou's current House of Flying Daggers.

Tarantino and Li lead off the DVD with a conversation about Chinese movies, while Yimou admits that he wasn't sure about making a martial-arts movie after making his name with slower, more dramatic projects (Raise the Red Lantern is probably the best known here).

Centrepiece of the disk is an exceptional, extended behind-the-scenes feature that follows filming with contributions from all the cast and leading crew. There are four scene-to-storyboard comparisons.

* DVD, video rental today