Hero's Mise en scene

With films like Hero, one can only sit back and stare. The movie is filled with dazzling whirlwinds of leaves, flying arrows, amazing, almost overwhelming, color schemes and flowing garments. In the Red Leaves Scene, you can see how intricately shot the movie was and the extreme attention to detail. There are yellow leaves surrounding the two leading females in the film as they begin to fight. It is the most graceful battle scene that one can watch where leaves flow with swords and bloodshed changes the color of the leaves.


In addition to the grace of the movie, the scenic design in impeccable. According to cinematographer Christopher Doyle, the movie is anallegory of truth and perception. He enjoyed the color red being used, because in his mind, it represented the Chinese. He wanted to move the camera as each character willed it with their movements. Each color meant something specific to Doyle and represented a character. For example, blue meant unreal amounts of sky and a lot of movement as you can see in the gif below.

Green is the most characteristic according to Doyle and is calm, serene, and less complex than the red and blues.

The incredible job done by Christopher Doyle influenced his nomination for an Academy Award for cinematography for the film Hero. He helped the film transcend the idea of just another action-packed martial arts film and brought out the true meaning of the film, which was the essence of martial arts itself.