{"id":16424,"date":"2021-05-04T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=16424"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:14:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:14:39","slug":"harveys-hellhole-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/harveys-hellhole-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvey’s Hellhole: Hero<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Welcome to Harvey\u2019s Hellhole, a new, monthly column devoted to spotlighting the movies that were poorly marketed, mishandled, reshaped, neglected or just straight-up destroyed by Harvey Weinstein, during his reign as one of the most powerful studio chiefs in Hollywood. This month\u2019s column is on Weinstein\u2019s early-aughts run of acquiring Asian blockbusters, mainly in the hopes that they would be as successful as the One that Got Away:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To say the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon<\/em> bothered Harvey Weinstein would be an understatement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ang Lee\u2019s high-flying, martial-arts period piece, starring Asian action icons Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh and distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, was a critically-acclaimed, award-winning hit, making over $200 million worldwide ($128 million right here in the States) and winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Weinstein had to downplay reports of regularly chewing out his acquisitions staff for letting Crouching<\/em> slip through their fingers; \u201cIt\u2019s not true that it drove me crazy,\u201d he told the Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/a> in 2001. Nevertheless, after the movie won over America, he went on an acquiring spree, snagging Far East titles left and right, hoping to get some chopsocky gold of his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Unfortunately, when Weinstein got hold of these films, he once again went into Harvey Scissorhands mode and turned out redubbed, rescored and heavily recut films. (This wasn\u2019t a new thing \u2014 a few years before, Miramax\u2019s genre-picture wing Dimension released several repackaged Jackie Chan titles, including Supercop<\/em> and Operation Condor<\/em>.) At the request of Miramax golden boy Quentin Tarantino, he dumped $10 million into rehauling and releasing Iron Monkey<\/em>, a 1991 flick produced by Hong Kong great Tsui Hark and directed by Crouching<\/em> fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping. Despite its truncated form, it got good reviews and became the eleventh highest-grossing foreign-language film in the U.S. The same can\u2019t be said for Shaolin Soccer<\/em>, Stephen Chow\u2019s 2001 sports comedy that, despite being a smash in Hong Kong, only made about half a million when a sliced-and-diced version finally got to the States in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most well-documented case of Weinstein mishandling an Asian import is the release of Hero<\/em>, a 2002 wuxia<\/em> tale that, just like Crouching, <\/em>features elegant visuals and gravity-defying action sequences. It has a murderers\u2019 row of Hong Kong stars: Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Donnie Yen, even Crouching<\/em> co-star Zhang Ziyi. And it\u2019s directed by Zhang Yimou, the filmmaker of such acclaimed Asian dramas as To Live<\/em> and Raise the Red Lantern<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on Jing Ke’s assassination attempt on the King of Qin in 227 B.C., this Rashomon<\/em>-esque story has Li as a nameless fighter (who is actually referred to as Nameless) having a sit-down with a conquering king (Chen Daoming) he plans to take out. But before that, he tells the king how he allegedly took out three of the king\u2019s most ardent assassins \u2014 Sky (Yen) and lovers Broken Sword (Leung) & Flying Snow (Cheung) \u2014 in heavily colorful flashbacks. The movie is an endless visual feast, with longtime Wong Kar-wai cinematographer Christopher Doyle making sure everything sparkles on-screen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s easy to see why Weinstein snapped up the North American distribution rights for $20 million, before it was even released in China. But even after he touted in press releases how much he was looking forward to bringing Hero<\/em> to U.S. multiplexes, the movie would spend a lengthy amount of time on the fabled Miramax shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For two years, Weinstein concentrated more on the prestige flicks that he hoped would get him some Oscars (Gangs of New York, Cold Mountain<\/em>, etc.) than little ol\u2019 Hero<\/em>, which actually did receive a Best Foreign Language Film nod at the 2003 Academy Awards. So many release dates came and went, it got to the point where Tarantino, fresh off the Kill Bill<\/em> movies, stepped in to ensure the movie\u2019s profitability by stamping a \u201cQuentin Tarantino Presents\u201d in the marketing material. By the time it was released in August of 2004, Hero<\/em> already broke box office records in China and hit the DVD market overseas. (I should know \u2014 I bought one off eBay before it came out.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, American audiences were ready to take Hero<\/em>\u2019s journey; the movie was number one at the box office in its first two weeks of release, grossing $53.7 million domestically and becoming the third highest-grossing foreign film in the U.S. (Crouching<\/em> is still numero uno<\/em>.) Of course, many critics loved it, even though some didn\u2019t dig its autocratic subject matter. (J. Hoberman said it made him think of Leni Riefenstahl and Triumph of the Will<\/em>, while Sean Burns called it \u201cvisually breathtaking, narratively klutzy and politically sickening.\u201d) Unlike the other Asian films Weinstein released, Hero<\/em> was mostly untarnished. I\u2019m assuming even Weinstein knew he shouldn\u2019t touch the perfection Zhang crafted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even after Weinstein moved from Miramax to The Weinstein Company, he was still chasing after Crouching<\/em>\u2019s success, even making the mediocre sequel Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny<\/em> for Netflix in 2016. He could\u2019ve had something when he snagged Wong Kar-wai\u2019s Ip Man biopic The Grandmaster<\/em> in 2013. But we once again got a recut version (supervised by Wong, mind you) when it hit U.S. shores. After all those years, Weinstein never learned that, when it came to cutting shit out, he really needed to cut that shit out. \"\"\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hero” is currently streaming on HBOMax<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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