Better than Crouching Tiger??

I've had Hero on my list of anticipated films for a while, and
James just sent me a big Time article which has raised my
expectations even further. For one thing, the film's title
has been solidified. Early reports indicated that it was titled
Heroes, but now it's just plain Hero.
Why the hype?
The director is Zhang Yimou, the man behind Raise the Red
Lantern, Ju Dou, To Live, and The Road Home, among other
classics. It's his first martial arts film, but that didn't stop
Ang Lee from achieving success. And Yimou is ambitious:
like Lee, he aims to reinvent the genre.
The cast reads like the Asian Ocean's Eleven cast:
Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tone Leung, Zhang Ziyi, Donnie
Yen.
The cinematographer is Christopher Doyle, who has done amazing
work with Wong Kar Wai, most recently on In the Mood for Love.
What's more, he gets the chance to film in 3 different thematic
colors, red, white, and blue, to represent the views of 3 different
characters.
Emi Wada, who won an Oscar for Ran, is providing costumes.
Tan Dun, Oscar winner for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, will
score the film.
For those who are not familiar with these vets of
Asian cinema, it's as if the entire group of celebrities who
did the Sept. 11 Tribute to America got together to make
a movie directed by Steven Spielberg.
The stable of talent in Asia at all levels of the film industry is
thinner, and perhaps that's the reason that we fans of the genre
are fortunate enough to see many collaborations b/t the stars
of that industry. It's much tougher in the United States to get
a whole bunch of big stars together on a film because of salary
and schedule constraints. And ego. In Asian films, we've seen
just about every combination possible. Well, Jet Li and Chow Yun
Fat haven't done anything together. Maybe we'll see that
someday too.