Hero Movie Plot

(Plot)

        In the movie Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) which revolves around the conversation between the King Qin and Nameless. The plot of the movie starts off with Nameless arriving at the castle and escorted to the throne room, where he tells the king his side of the story on how he is able to get the weapon from Sky. Followed by the second plot where Nameless then continues on his story on how he further obtain the rest of the two weapons from Broken Sword and Flying Snow. In the third plot the king find that Nameless is not a trustworthy narrator and gives his perspective of the story on what really happens. Then finally the truth is revealed by Nameless. Lastly, Nameless failed in assassinating the king and was executed for attempting to assassinate the king.

        In terms of cause and effect Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson explained that a plot can infer cause and effect and thus build up a total story (83). Thus, in the case of the movie Hero, the plot is used to withhold the cause and present the effect. This is true because as seen in the plots of the movie which would be the conversations between Nameless and the King, as an audience we know that Nameless brought back the assassins weapons before the King as proof but we do not know how he brought the weapons back. Thus, throughout the conversation the story of how the weapon is ended up with Nameless is slowly revealed to the audience.  Looking at another perspective, in terms of why Nameless seek out to kill Long Sky, Flying Snow and Broken sword, another story is revealed which would be because Flying Snow and Broken Sword attempted to assassinate the king earlier. Thus, in the earlier portion of the first plot the story we do know why Nameless seek to get the weapons which is also later revealed. In this perspective we see the cause is also withhold. The plot also uses a different time and space to present the sum total story of the movie. Through the plot the events are revealed out of its chronological order. Which means that the films story is being constructed out of its chronological order (Bordwell et al.84). We can see this in the film during the conversation between Nameless and the King as flashbacks are heavily use to reveal the sum of the total story. Which signals that there is an event before the beginning of the plot which is the moment Nameless arrive as the Kings castle. Based on Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson flashbacks are simply a portion of a story presented outside of the plot (84).

        In terms of the concept of duration the screen duration selects plot duration and plot duration selects screen duration (Bordwell et al. 85). It is seen that the plot is used to both concentrate on a short time span and also a longer time span of the story duration. The story on how Nameless possesses the weapons owned by the assassins would represent a shorter time span and the part of the story which shows that Flying Snow and Broken Sword attempting to murder the King would be in a longer time span. Other than that, in terms of screen duration it can be argued that the plot used the screen duration to compress story duration as the story before the first plot, which is seen in the three of the later flashbacks it takes Nameless a few days before finish executing his plan with Flying Snow and Broken sword which is compress into a minutes. However, the story duration takes up most of the time of the screen duration and the plot duration takes up very little of that time. This, means that the plot uses the screen duration to expand the story duration of the movie. Besides that it is seen that frequency is also used heavily in the movie, a frequency is the same events appearing twice or more times (Bordwell et al. 86). In the plot of the movie the story that is revealed on how Nameless obtain the weapons are shown in three different perspectives. The first part shows Nameless part of the story which is a lie and followed by the king’s perspective of what really happen as the king may deemed Nameless to be an unreliable source. Then finally, we see the same story revealed with the truth as well as, what happen before Nameless sought towards his journey to kill Broken Sword and Flying Snow.  Through the different perspective, we see the same story revealed with different outcomes as to how the weapon ends up at Nameless possession. Throughout the film, we can also see that a different space is used when the events that make up the story is revealed. Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson states the normally the place of the story action is also that of the plot, but sometimes the plot leads us to infer other locales as part of the story (90). In the movie Hero the plot uses flashbacks takes the audience to other places of the story. As, seen in the first flashback Nameless went into another village by which Sky was hiding himself in to hunt him down followed by the second flashback which Nameless went into another country to seek Broken Sword and Flying Snow. These flashbacks shows the different parts of the world that Nameless needed to travel in order to achieve his main goal which is to get closer to the King Qin.

The plot of the film is represented as the effect and withholding the cause which would be the story before the plot. By, withholding the cause this helps in arousing the viewer’s curiosity (Bordwell et al. 83). By, arousing the audience curiosity the audience is allowed to further be enthusiastic about the film and continues to watch. Besides that, the range of information that is presented earlier in the first plot are broad but there is a small twists in every story that is presented throughout the film. So, the plot that presents the story withholds small bits of information which helps in further arousing curiosity (Bordwell et al. 93). Which can be seen in the first story presented by Nameless as the narrator then followed by the king as a narrator. Which in each story shows a different outcome and a slightly different pattern on how Nameless ended up with the weapons at his possession. By, twisting a tiny bit of information in each story the audience will further be curious on knowing what is going to happen next, which allows the audience to continue watching until the end. Which shows that the range of information are slowly revealed as each story that are told, by doing this it furthers raise curiosity towards the audience to continue watching the film and further get into the film. Other than that, it is seen how the plot presents its story in a different time, shows that the events are presented out of its chronological order. The reason to that is because according to Timothy Corrigon and Patricia White ‘most films deviate, to some extent, from straight linear chronologies to create different perspectives on events in order to lead viewers toward an understanding of what is or is not important’ (234). As we further analyse narrative time and break it down. In the duration component of narrative time we can see that the story duration takes up most of the time of the screen duration. Which indicates that the events that happens before the plot which make up the story is important this also allows the audience to better understand the story or the events taken place before the plot. The frequency component of the narrative time also indicates the same thing. As the story that is told repeated two times with different outcome before the real story is revealed together with every questions that the viewer has about the whole story of the movie. Which shows that the movie revolves around the story that is being discussed between the king and Nameless. So, the audience know that the story before the plot is important.