Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant

This weekend, I saw Hero, Zhang Yimou's much-raved restylizing of the beginnings of China. And I've finally come to a troubling personal conclusion: magical realism, when approached seriously, just does not work.

I should point out that, while I've always dug martial arts epics (with Swordsman II perhaps remaining the apex of the genre), I was never really a big fan of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There seemed to me something patently false about guys (and gals) who could kick ass on high wires, but who didn't so much as snicker about it. It seemed pretentious to take a reality that, even with the digital erasing of wires, couldn't possibly happen in our world