This has a cast that is virtually a who’s who: Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Ziyi Zhang. And then it is directed by Zhang Yimou and ‘presented’ by one Quentin Tarantino. After that it will either be a great disappointment or heroic. For me it is definitely the latter.

The colour, the scope, the story with its twists and turns and multiple perspectives, are all things that I will remember for a long time. And still somehow the film transcends even these and becomes something that is greater than the sum of it parts. It has something intangible, some other worldly quality that makes it a great, rather than a good film.

For me it is simply a film I cannot forget, and would never want to forget. A film that simply changed me, and changed the way I see the world. A film that you simply must see.

This land doesn’t know a real hero. Yet.