I am more aware of the world surrounding Hero as I had seen a television adaptation during the early 90s starring Kenny Ho Kar kin. The film cannot compete with the television series because it doesn't have the time nor the space to tell the whole story. Instead it focuses on the drama that takes place in America.

The story is quite complicated and involves a number of twists and turns with a host of characters. In essence, we witness Hero having to flee China and escaping to the States. His wife Jade (Kristy Yang) later joins him and gives birth to twins, but she dies shortly after. One of the twins is kidnapped by Bigot (Tsui Kam Kong), and the other is given to the care of Hero's friend, Sheng (Jerry Lam), to look after.

Hero is later told that he was born under the Star of Death, which means that all those close to him will end up dead, so he chooses to leave them all. Hero's master, Pride (Anthony Wong), bestows upon him China's Secret, a powerful martial art, and Hero spends the next ten or so years to perfect his skills.

Hero's son, Sword (Nicholas Tse), returns to America with Sheng to look for his father, and to find his lost sister. They soon come up against Invincible (Francis Ng), who previously had lost a fight against Pride, and now wants to fight Hero. In a bid to save his loved ones, Hero returns (with whitened hair) to stop Invincible.

Although the film wasn't filmed in America, the production team had managed to capture the essence of early 1900s America. The budget was high for this film so everything felt right, down to the costumes, set-pieces, and locations. A large part of the budget was spent on the CGI effects, including creating a mock-up of a part of the Statue of Liberty, but certain scenes with CGI looked rather fake, and ones that felt right were far too short.

The biggest flaw in the film is undoubtedly the setting. Everyone knows that the Statue of Liberty is in New York, but how come then, that the film is set in an Eastern coast city? A journey by ship from China to America would certainly travel along the Pacific, to destinations like Los Angeles and San Francisco. So, it is very unlikely that they would end up in New York, especially as the Chinese labourers were sent to work in quarries and mines.

The second major problem I have with the film is that we see very little of older Hero, most of the film he is the same younger Hero. Maybe they are saving it for the inevitable sequel? After all, there is still a second part of the story yet to be told, for example, Hero will find his daughter in China where she has been brought up to hate him, and Sword has his left arm chopped off, but becomes an even more powerful figure than his father.

Another flaw is (and a glaring one this), when Shadow and Jin fly off to fight at the end, there is no further mention of them - they simply disappear. Excuse me?

Criticisms aside, I thought Ekin Cheng made a dashing Hero - if you compare him to the comic books, they do look alike, and Nicholas Tse also proved that he is capable of handling an emotional scene. All in all, A Man Called Hero has proved to be an acceptable adaptation of a difficult comic series, but there has been faults, and this is mainly due to the overuse of computer effects to add to the action. The ending is particularly at fault, with scenes looking too phony for my taste.

Better than Stormriders? Overall, no. But Hero's story and plotting is tighter and more compelling. However, it is nonetheless a marvellous achievement.