Reflection on Film - Hero

                In these few lessons, we watched the film "Hero" directed by the famous Chinese director named Zhang Yi Mou.

                Before watching the film, we learnt about cinematography. Cinematography means "to

write movement", and is the art of telling a story visually with images, light and colour. A cinematographer can use different ways to tell a story, such as shot sizes, composition (where the subjects are placed within the frame) and also lighting. 

What do the colours represent?

                In this film, there are many changes of colours. Red, blue, green, and white had been in it. Each colour represents different moods and characters. I think that red represents the characters' passion, while blue means the characters are cold. Also, red also means that the characters in the film died, as it is the colour of blood. In one of the scenes, when the characters died, the sky turned a bit red. Additionally, the colours of the background in the film sometimes represented who was more powerful. In one of the scenes, which the man and the emperor fight, there were many green curtains in the place where they fight. The man was wearing a green costume, so the audience would know that he was more powerful and had a bigger chance to win at that time as the background showed the colour green.

                This is a martial arts film so there are a lot of scenes which the characters fight. When they are fighting, there is contrast in the colour of the clothing they are wearing and the background. One of my favourite scenes was the characters fighting in a place filled with autumn leaves that are yellow. They were wearing red clothes and the red stands out in that scene. The colour of the leaves gradually turned from yellow to red. That was a really beautiful and gorgeous scene.

What shot sizes are used and why?

                There are many different types of shot sizes. In this film, extreme long shots are always used to show where the characters are in. They always changed from one place to another, therefore to tell the audience where the characters are, the film used a lot of extreme long shots to show the background.

How does the composition of the shot tell us something about the situation?

                One scene that is the most unforgettable is when they show how far the emperor and the man were apart. They put the characters far apart, and shot the scene using an extreme long shot. This shows how difficult it is to approach the emperor. 

What is the lighting telling you about the character?
                Sometimes, the characters' faces are a bit blue. It is telling me that they are cold and unemotional. The lighting tells me the personality of the characters or what the characters feel at that time. 

                I think I am a thinker in these few lessons. I tried to think about why the shot sizes and colours are used in the film. However, I didn’t really talk much and express my ideas during the lesson.