31st August 2004, 12:12 PM
Dark Jaguar Wrote:ABF, that's about right. When that dedicated hard core friend of a friend sitting nearby said that to me, I thought it DID mean something totally different and a huge part of the meaning of the movie was changed. The person had to TELL me that all under heaven was just an expression that was a sort of unifying thing. Honestly, I agree that "all under heaven" would confuse a large number of people, myself included, and LEGITIMATLY so at that. In the context it sounds like "taking over the world is an admirable goal".
The movie is about the first Emperor of China who was the first to unite all of the different sections into one whole country. China is pretty damn big and at that time "all under heaven" would naturally mean just people in China. It's sort of like how right now we call things "universal" when obviously we're just talking about our little planet.
Quote:You have a much higher level of knowledge about this than most people who'd be seeing it in theaters, I bet.
Actually I'm not much of a Chinese history buff and I never heard the saying "all under heaven" before I saw Hero, but in the context of the movie it could only really mean one thing. They even talk about the history behind the picture and what it's all about at the beginning and end of the movie.