‘A Man Called Hero’ is the follow-up to the hugely successful ‘Storm Riders’ produced by Andrew Lau again. Another manga-style martial arts / fantasy stardom with once again little emphasis on character development apart from ‘Ekin Cheung’, whom is the lead actor is this grandeur.

Wah Ying-Hing (aka Hero, played by Ekin Cheng) is the legendary chinese hero in the early 20th Century, wielding the legendary ‘Blood Sword’. Wah Ying-Hin is born under the star of death and so causes harm to people around him, whether they are family or friends. Therefore he must live his life out in solitude, all alone, in such a tragic predicament. Ekin Cheng portrays this character well, but at times can be dull when his presence is not always noted. His love interest is played by ‘Kristy Yeung’ whom can’t always help but play the damsel in distress. Although later in the movie (about half way through), just as in ‘The Storm Riders’, she gets rubbed off, due to an unfortunate chain of events. Fortunately Ekin Cheng’s Character development is very well done, where we get an insight into his family principles and background, without the unnecessary use of reading the comics before watching the movie. Ekin and Kristy have a son and daughter (twins), and so that no harm shall be bestowed on his family, Ekin leaves to America, leaving his wife and son in the capable hands of his best friend ‘Jerry Lam’ (whom you might have seen co-star in the young and dangerous series alongside Ekin Cheng).

Although this movie contains an entire full-course meal of stars, which include ‘Anthony Wong’, ‘Francis Ngan’, ‘Nicholas Tse’, ‘Ken Lo’, ‘Shu Qi’ and ‘Sam Lee’, Andrew Lau can’t help but give them all a few minutes of screen time before they mysteriously disappear from where ever they came from or worse get rejected by ‘Ekin Cheng’ (now that would be heart felt blow for anyone!!). Once again Shu Qi plays the other love interest (second choice preference, as in Storm Riders) of Ekin Cheng this time and only really gets a few intimate scenes with him, after Kristy Yeung passes away. This is a replica of the side-story line developed in storm riders and Andrew Lau should have noted this and taken it out of the picture before it was too late. Also Nicholas Tse plays the rejected son of Ekin Cheng, who holds resentment against him due to his departure to America and his mother’s sudden death. Typically this father-son relationship goes nowhere and sadly ends up in tears, of course no one wants to see Nicholas Tse cry in the first place.

Overall not as good as Storm Riders, but some memorable action sequences which do keep the movie above the rest of the garbage that might have come out in the same year. The last climatic fight between Ekin Cheng and Francis Ngan, is set on top of the ‘Statue of Liberty’ and the result is a whole lot of rubble, which you might think is an cheap blow on the Americans, but you never know??

Overall Rating: 7.1/10