Eagle Shooting Heroes

Kino International

You haven't lived until you've seen arthouse stalwart Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, the champion brooder who starred in moody films like Lust Caution and 2046, play a campy, cackling, mustachioed villain. And Leung is just one of the attractions in this madcap martial arts spoof, whose cast list is a roster of A-list Hong Kong actors that includes Leslie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung and Joey Wang. Heroes is vaguely based on the novels of Louis Cha (and in fact was shot concurrently with Wong Kar-Wai's Cha adaptation, Ashes of Time), but the sloppy story about a group of fighters converging for a big showdown isn't the point; it's just the framework for a collection of breathless, nutty set pieces - involving gay monks, flying swordsmen, crossdressing, star-crossed lovers, martial arts duels and Chinese opera - that spoof action/fantasy movies. If you've seen recent wuxia hits like Crouching Tiger and Flying Daggers, you'll get the gist. But the more you know of Hong Kong cinema the more you'll appreciate this movie, because its chief pleasure isn't in the hit-and-miss humor, but the spectacle of this cast making complete fools of themselves while loving every minute of it.