Dangerous times make heroes of desperate men. - Brother Tam-Sei (Yuen Biao)
Hero, also known as Ma Wing-jing, is a 1997 Hong Kong Heroic Bloodshed film produced by Shaw Brothers, starring Takeshi Kaneshiro and Yuen Biao (frequent Jackie Chan collaborator). A remake of the old Shaw Brothers movie The Boxer From Shantung, Hero is notably the last film made by Shaw Brothers before the studio closed businesses permanently in 1998 (nowadays the studio serves as a tourist attraction in its native China).
Much like the original, the story revolves around Ma Wing-jing (Kaneshiro), a youngster living in the last days of Imperial China, where after the downfall of the Qing Dynasty, is seeking a better opportunity in Shanghai, the Chinese capital of vice, gangsters, triads, and criminal activity. After stumbling into the activities of local triad kingpin Brother Tam-sei (Yuen Biao), Ma joins Brother Tam's syndicate as an enforcer, rising in the ranks of the triads as a trained killer. But when Brother Tam's number two, Yang, overthrows Brother Tam and seeks to kill him and all his allies, including Ma, its time for Ma and his friends to overthrow the same triad they were raised in, blood-brothers style.
Shootouts, swordfights, and bloodshed ensues. Like, so much blood.
This film contains examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: Brother Tam-sei. In the original movie Boxer of Shantung, Brother Tam, played by David Chiang, dies after one fight scene, although he did kill at least a dozen mooks before expiring. In this remake, Brother Tam lives through one action scene after another, survives multiple assassination attempts, and actually kills nearly a hundred enemies before his eventual death, which happens in the last few minutes of the film.
- Anti-Hero: Despite what the title says, none of the main characters are really heroes, since they are just killers and mobsters by the end of the day.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Ma, the moment he starts climbing the ranks in Brother Tam’s organization. Especially in the banquet scene where he kicks ass while wearing a suave white tuxedo.
- Badass Longcoat: Ma wears a long trenchcoat for most of the movie, and Brother Tam sometimes wears a similar coat as well.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: Yang have a hidden blade installed in his sleeve, which he used to stab Brother Tam fatally through the gut in the final battle.
- Coffin Contraband: In the shootout, Brother Tam's coffin actually contains Brother Tam, who isn't dead at all, and at least twenty different guns. Allowing him to leap out of the coffin and start firing away at mooks left and right.
- Died Standing Up: Brother Tam, overlapping with Crucified Hero Shot.
- Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: During the banquet battle, Ma is the only one who wears white, making him a magnet for every single henchman (all whom are wearing black) to come at him. While there’s plenty of fighting in the background against the henchmen and Ma’s allies, since Ma’s white shirt sticks out like a lightbulb in the dark the audience can see how much of a badass One-Man Army he is against hordes and hordes of mooks.
- End of an Age: The opening scene depicts China after the Qing Dynasty, with the age of emperors ending ending, the Chinese revolution taking over, and the triads rising in power and taking control of Shanghai.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Brother Tam had a flashback sequence back to his younger days where he’s still a young man in the Qing Dynasty, at which point he sports a Wong Fei-Hung style braid with the front of his head shaved bald. Cut to the present, and he’s an older man with regular short hair like everyone else.
- Faking the Dead: Brother Ma is assumed to be dead after an assassination attempt halfway into the movie, complete with a Meaningful Funeral for him. But its all a ruse to set up an ambush leading to the final battle.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Ma and Brother Tam's allies, going through thick and thin, and willing to die for each other.
- The "Fun" in "Funeral": Inverted, it’s the funeral procession that’s doing the crashing, when Ma and several of Brother Tam’s loyalists carries the coffin containing Brother Tam – still alive actually and just hiding inside – right into Yang’s parade, and then whips out firearms and initiates the final shootout.
- Guns Akimbo: In the final shootout, Ma gets to use dual Mausers against legions and legions of thugs.
- Hot-Blooded: Ma is quite a hothead, even before his integration into the triads.
- Improvised Weapon: At the end of a horsecart chase with Ma’s vehicle being toppled over, and crashed, Ma then picks up one of his cart’s spokes, complete with a wheel still attached to it, and uses that to beat up pursuing thugs.
- Interesting Situation Duel: A Chase Fight occurs between Ma and Brother Tam while both are on separate moving wagons pulled by horses.
- Leap and Fire: Ma does this a lot in the final shootout.
- Monochrome Past: Used in the opening credits depicting Ma’s childhood growing up rough and the downfall of the Qing Dynasty.
- Mutual Kill: The final confrontation between Brother Tam and Yang have Yang fatally stabbing Tam in the stomach, but in his dying breath, Tam kicks his opponent backwards onto a spiked bamboo pole, causing Yang to be Impaled with Extreme Prejudice through the back of his neck.
- Never Found the Body: Brother Tam, he shows up alive and well in the last 10 minutes of the film for the finale.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Brother Tam's remaining followers, Ma included, decides to go for a do-or-die final attempt to take on Yang and his army of mooks, to avenge Brother Tam's death. And then Tam turns out to be still alive, and joins the finale to resume kicking ass.
- Redshirt Army: Brother Tam's followers backing up Ma in the final shootout. Plenty of them died in the process, and by the time the climax has ended there are barely any survivors.
- Spared by the Adaptation
- Subverted for Brother Tam. Unlike the original who dies after 15 minutes of screentime, Yuen Biao's version of Brother Tam survives for most of the movie until he finally dies in the climax, himself and the Big Bad killing each other. He Dies Differently in Adaptation too.
- Played straight with Ma. The original Ma Wing-jing (played by Gary Chen Kuan-tai) succumbs to his injuries, but Takeshi Kaneshiro's version outlives the credits.
- Swiss-Army Gun: In the final shootout, Brother Tam, revealing himself to still be alive, steps out of his own coffin holding two bundles of rifles all tied together, firing round after round without reloading and killing an entire row of mooks. Later on, the underside of his coffin is shown to have a row of guns nailed to its surface, and he can fire all of those simultaneously killing even more mooks.
- Taking You with Me: Several of Brother Ma's followers are willing to blow themselves up to take out large chunks of Yang's henchmen, allowing their comrades a chance of victory despite being outnumbered.
- Throw-Away Guns: Played straight in the final shootout, with Ma packing several Mausers by his sides.
- Took a Level in Badass: Ma Wing-jing, from common laborer trying to eke a living to triad enforcer, killer, and all-round baddass who take names like breathing.
- Torches and Pitchforks: Part of the action scenes involves Ma being pursued by Yang’s minions armed with torches, although they use axes instead of pitchforks.
- Trenchcoat Warfare: In the final battle, Ma’s trenchcoat comes in handy for holding bandoleers full of explosives, several Masuer pistols, and at least two machine guns.
- Undying Loyalty: Brother Tam's followers and allies. In the final battle, eager to avenge their big brother, they are willing to leap at Yang's first waves of henchmen with bundles of explosives attached to their belts, blowing up themselves and killing plenty of the opposition side.
- Unlikely Hero: Ma himself, a laborer and dock worker, who earns his way above into the triads and eventually becoming an all-powerful badass.
