Hero (2002)

2002 Chinese film by Zhang Yimou

Released

2002

Country

People's Republic of China

Language

Mandarin

Genre

Martial arts film

Director

Zhang Yimou

Screenplay

Zhang Yimou

Producer

Zhang Yimou

Music

Tan Dun

Cinematography

Christopher Doyle

Starring

Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Chen Daoming, Zhang Ziyi, Donnie Yen

Running time

99 minutes

Production company

Sil-Metropole Organisation

Distributor

InterCom, Netflix

Box office

$177.4 million

Budget

$31 million

Set in

Shaanxi

Hero (Chinese: 英雄; pinyin: Yīngxióng) is a 2002 epic wuxia film directed, co-written, and produced by Zhang Yimou, and starring Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Donnie Yen and Chen Daoming. The film is a Chinese-Hong Kong co-production, with cinematography by Christopher Doyle and musical score by Tan Dun. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 75th Academy Awards.

The historical background of the film refers to the Warring States Period in ancient China, when China was divided into seven states. In 227–221 BC, the Qin state was about to unify the other six states, assassins from the six states were sent to assassinate the king of Qin. One of the most famous incidents was Jing Ke's attempted assassination of the King of Qin.

More films directed by Zhang Yimou

• House of Flying Daggers 2004

Nominations

• Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
• International Submission to the Academy Awards

External links

• Wikipedia
• IMDb
• TMDb
• Wikidata

Facts from Wikidata Q260379 (CC0); quoted introduction from English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Data retrieved 2026-10-22.

Data: Wikidata (CC0 1.0); Wikipedia (English) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.