I really dislike T3.

I really liked Hero, but my heart went out most to Snow and Broken Sword. Oh, god, and poor Sky who's just going to hear about all this on the rumour mill.

Something I did notice -- although the subtitles only said "our land" when they were specifically talking about the country, the Mandarin phrase was used a whole lot in the minutes following. Kinda cool.

But yeah, I had a profound sense of sadness knowing how it was going to end as soon as Qin sussed Nameless.

Can you make a wuxia movie with a happy ending?

I think there seems to be a requisite nobility and sacrifice that lends itself to that sort of ending. But a movie like Wing Chun is wuxia, and a pretty happy wrapup.

For me, Hero went past that sort of expectations of the genre into the same sort of place as Amistad, or The Last Mohican, or Schindler's List -- where lots of real people really died. If it had been a little less lyrically beautiful, I might have cried for what of history it made me remember clearly.

I was pretty confident early on they weren't going to successfully kill the Emperor. It wouldn't have matched the arc of the story. But I STILL think that Falling Snow died ignobly, if beautifully photographed. As the Emperor said way back, they're greater-souled than that. I would have been happier if the final quarrel wasn't framed as Snow's being obviously wrong.

I disagree with the framing of the final fight scene. I think that the movie could have pushed the "our land" harder. I'm glad it didn't, because any harder I couldn't have liked it. I was convinced that Nameless and Broken Sword believed deeply in their way, but I didn't find as much textual condemnation of Falling Snow as I'd expected. She never changed her mind -- I didn't think the suicide of the earlier POV was ignoble -- why this one?

Sorry, I wasn't thinking clearly. The suicide was exquisite. Her killing him was just dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. The suicide was like Juliet stabbing herself on Romeo's corpse -- once you get to that point, it's the only thing to do, but why did you put yourself in that position, you stupid #WQ$@#$@#s?

He had to die because he couldn't win the fight. She had to fight because it was one of those honour things -- again, that behaviour was established as kinda SOP too. She knew she was fighting a losing battle, but she expected to be the one that lost. It was basically a suicide, but she couldn't get her revenge with him alive, and she had to try.

Then why did he say maybe NOW you'll believe I loved you? Passive-aggressive, wuxia-boy!

If he was that much better (and he was supposed to be), he could have disarmed her. Or did the sword-breaking sword belong to somebody else? Must watch movie again to confirm.

Now I am off to bed with a frozen kirsch. It had damned well better not be this hot tomorrow.

The sword breaking sword belonged to Nameless. Disarming her, and then what? She was fighting to the death, probably as many times as it took.