Theres no question that hong kong has the action market cornered when it comes to the greatest action ever put on film. Hard Boiled is, for my money, the greatest action picture ever made, but one has to consider that there are different kinds of action films. There are gun movies (Hard Boiled) and then there are more traditional, sword movies, such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Hero is in the later group. It is better than Crouching Tiger, has far more action and does cooler things. Both movies look amazing with the most beautiful scenery, and both have fantastic action choreography, but Hero just goes a little further. Take, for example, all of the scenes where herds of arrows are launched into the air. Or the two scenes where Jet Li shows off his skills without fighting any opponents (one involves splitting stacks, the other splitting an arrow). The Rashomon-like story is a little like Basic, which is to say that its not particulary easy to follow, but who cares. Its the action that counts in a movie like this, and the action in this movie is out of control. Hard Boiled has the gun movies beat and Hero has the sword movies looking up to it.
