How and why is the color toning relevant to Nameless’ version of the story in the movie “Hero”?
The movie “Hero” by Zhang Yimou and Christopher Doyle is a tale that narrates the life and ordeals of one anonymous Chinese assassin who is able to overcome three rivals. The movie seems to tell the story in three different perspectives. This notion is carried forward by the varied color toning that basically dominates the movie. The different versions of the same story appear to emanate from different worlds which are presented in three thematic colors: red, blue and green.
While these color choices may seem aesthetic, they seem rather symbolic and aid in promoting the theme of the movie. The morphing of colors in the movie is used to display the complexity in the existence of different versions for the same story. The different colors in “Hero” express the complications that arise in the assassin’s process of making choices. Yimou and Doyle effectively and profoundly use the red color tone to support the version of the story as is told by Nameless. Zhang Yimou invents a love story between the character of two assassins- Broken Sword and Flying Snow- and uses the color red to support the theme built around the characters. Yimou and Doyle employ the color red to mark the first version of the story in the perspective of Nameless. The red color is essentially a foil for the intensity of emotions that exists between Flying Snow, Broken Sword, Long Sky and Moon.
It tells of the love, hatred, violence, jealousy, and remorse that exist between these characters. The red color also correlates with different events in the story: the defloration of Moon, the blood of Broken Snow after he is stabbed to death by Flying Snow and also Moon’s blood following her fight with Flying Snow. The gradual change of the color from orange then yellow is symbolic of the way Moon gets closer to her …
