Narrative Theory - Hero (2002) Opening

Barthes

Enigma Code: At the beginning of the film we are introduced to the protagonist. Orphaned at an early age his background is a mystery. He had no name so people started calling him Nameless. He tells us that after ten years of training with swords he has acquired a unique skill and that his deeds have amazed the Kingdom. What skill has he acquired and what deeds has he performed? He has apparently killed three of the King's deadliest foes Sky, Flying Snow and Broken Sword. The King of Qin is surprised that Nameless just a lowly official managed to defeat three highly skilled assassins. This mystery becomes the basis of the film as we are given three different versions of events.

Cultural: The film begins with an opening scrawl which gives the audience some historical context for the film. Set two thousand years ago during the warring states period we are told that it is a time of death and suffering for the populace. The score begins with Japanese drums and traditional Chinese stringed instruments. The first images we see are of horse's hooves reminding us of a more primitive time before modern technology. We see mountain tops and soldiers in ancient armour carrying banners. From the very beginning we are shown the military might of the King of Qin.


Levi-Strauss

Binary Opposition: Levi-Strauss believed that our understanding of certain concepts relied on our understanding of it in relation to it's opposite. Binary opposites are commonly used in films, good guys vs bad guys, cowboys vs Indians, aliens vs humans. In Hero (2002) the character's relationships between each other are complicated by the fact that we are given three different versions of the same story and the characters in each version have different relationships with each other. Nevertheless looking at the opening I could still discern a number of binary opposites

Outside - Inside
Light - Dark
Individual - Group
King - Servant
Powerful - Weak
Clothed - Naked
Near - Far
Armed - Unarmed
Informed - Uniformed
High - Low

In Chinese philosophy the concept of yin and yang teaches that everything contains dualities, light - dark, young - old, feminine - masculine etc. Together these forces are greater than when separated and one is incomplete without the other.