Buy it... if you would be interested in a massive and more accessible expansion of Tan Dun's sounds for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Avoid it... if your ears could not find anything remotely enjoyable or interesting in that previous score, for the styles are largely similar.

Dun

Hero: (Tan Dun) The biggest domestic grosser in Chinese film history, Zhang Yimou's Hero was the natural progression of styles from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon into an even bigger and more lavish production. The former film, interestingly, never performed very well in China because of Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-Fat's accented Mandarin dialogue, but extra dubbing in Hero solved the problem and led the film not only to wild success in China, but abroad as well. The film nominations for an Oscar and Golden Globe in 2002 for the foreign film categories, but was never fully distributed in the West. Much of the cast and crew for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon returned the next year for Hero, with the addition of international star Jet Li as the nameless hero at the heart of the film. Set in China during the reign of the King of Qin (the emperor 2,200 years ago who united modern-day China and built the infamous wall), three assassins have vowed to kill the new emperor and one hero (Li) steps up to defend him and succeeds in killing all three through different techniques of swordplay and passion. Like its predecessor, Hero suspends reality by combining the martial arts craft with magical and logic-defying movements, taking every setting and packing them with even more exaggerated and unrealistic characteristics. Composer Tan Dun won nearly every conceivable award for his music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (defeating Gladiator in the year of that film score's popular reign), and with his name and work now extended into the international spotlight, Dun returns to expand upon the same general sound for Hero. Like the first film, he assembled immense talent for the project, recording with the China Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman, the KODO Drummers of Japan, the Ancient Rao Ensemble of the Changsha Museum, soprano You Yan, and guqin (lute) performer Liu Lu, with sessions in China, Japan, and New York. Whether or not your ears are tuned to enjoy the sounds of these musicians, the magnitude of the assembled performers should merit the curiosity of any film score collector, regardless of cultural upbringing.

Fortunately for the Western ears in particular, Hero is a more attainable sound to grasp than that of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Dun is not necessarily altering Hero for that specific purpose, but the more warlike nature of this second score causes the brass and percussion to be more recognizable than the dominant string material typically inherent in Dun's writing. The base romanticism in the string section still exists, and serves as the hypnotic heart of this score as well. Perlman's violin performances function very similarly to Yo Yo Ma's in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, with his style of performance altered to fit the slurring nature of historical string writing for the region. Dun is extremely loyal to his title theme, which may, in the end, be the most pronounced weakness of this score (as well as the previous one), and if the romanticism of this theme in all of its variants does not touch your soul, then you could in for a very long listen. But Dun does offer the passages of war dedicated to his huge armies, and in cues such as "Warriors" and "At the Emperor's Palace," the KODO Drummers are paired with magnificent single-note blasts of brass, and the fight sequences predictably rely heavily on block-busting and stick-tapping percussion to maintain their rhythmic steam. Still, despite the overwhelming power of the music for the Emperor's scenes, Dun's romantic treatment of his title theme prevails. The drums are always present in the score, but for the theme they perform quietly below the chorus for an uniquely Eastern and refreshing treatment of an otherwise typical orchestral theme. There are no individual standout cues --consistency is one of the trademark aspects of Dun's work for these films-- although pronounced performances by the soprano and lute player were limited and may have served the score better had they been used in a greater capacity. Also of curious note is the seeming omission of any special musical identity for each of the three charismatic assassins, leaving the music always firmly rooted in the passion that the nameless hero feels for his country. Overall, Hero is a pleasant and more readily enjoyable score than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, with a few militaristic cues of bombast tempered by 45 minutes of beautiful treatment of the score's primary theme. The non-American versions of the Hero album (2002-2003) contain a vocal rendition of the theme (performed by Faye Wong in Chinese Mandarin) as a bonus track. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download