Zhang Yimou not only creates a colorful epic, he owns the entire martial arts genre with this historic achievement. With film art's most beautiful color palette, he shows that style can sometimes both be and enhance the content.

There are films that are beautiful, films that are so dazzling in their imagery that it hurts and then there is Hero. As Zhang Yimou seriously ventures into the martial arts genre that was given new life by Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, he continues on the same track as the Taiwanese, but adds something all his own, a color scheme that beats everything in theaters now and, probably forever.

Because when Hero after a rather black introduction explodes into its scales, there is no one with fully functioning color vision who cannot drop their chin. Like when Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung fight in green, or when Jet Li and Donnie Yen spar with sound and water in greyscale monochrome. Or the most beautiful of all: A passionate red fight among yellow leaves between Zhang Ziyi and Maggie Cheung. Right then and there, I am inclined to declare this the world's most beautiful experience.

But there is an action too. A rather unexciting one. It revolves around the unnamed hero played by Jet Li. In a long conversation with the King of Qin, an assassination attempt on him is played out from three different points of view. All in different colors and with different intentions. Once the truth is revealed, both the hero and the king reveal sides that have been hidden until now in an emotional climax that may not be entirely politically correct, but in the context makes perfect sense.

However, the journey there is colored by Yimou's imagery. And what imagery! There is not a single frame in Hero that any other director would kill to be behind. Sometimes it becomes almost distancing to see scene after scene surpass each other in terms of creativity with composition, sound and message. The problem with films like this is usually that it can all become a bit too much style instead of substance and there are times when Hero comes dangerously close to not being much more than a pretty tableau. That's where the actors come in.

The under-the-radar couple Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung have made about ten films together, which is evident in their undisguised chemistry. It absolutely sparkles around the duo, who instill warmth and believability behind their color-changing outfits. Even the wooden goat Jet Li copes excellently in a subdued role and Chen Daoming is as beautiful as any in the role of the King of Qin. The only one who sadly doesn't quite make it out when all the kicking, sword-slapping and betrayal is over is actually Zhang Ziyi, the exclamation mark from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but that's more because her role is a pale copy of the one in Lee's film. However, she is still beautiful as day.

It would be very easy to argue that Hero is not much more than a pretty surface that sometimes drags out a bit well with its long fight scenes. That statement is also true when rating the film, but what makes Yimou's film a modern classic is that the surface is what makes the film interesting from the start. A story where colors tell more than dialogue. A film that stretches gravity to achieve a new aesthetic. A masterpiece.