Into the late-summer movie doldrums Miramax tosses the top-grossing movie in the history of the biggest country on Earth. Chinese box-office champ Hero had Beijing audiences lined up in the streets and prompted theaters to add extra screenings when it opened in December 2002. It charged to the top of the box office on the strength of director Zhang-Yimou's reputation and a highly anticipated showdown between Asian film titans Jet Li and Donnie Yen.

"There were a lot of expectations on both of us because we worked together 10 years ago in a film called Once Upon a Time in China, Part II," Yen said in a recent telephone interview. "That film really set a standard for Hong Kong action movies. It created a lot of noise: Jet Li versus Donnie Yen, again. What are they going to do this time, after 10 years?"

Yen was in the United States last week to promote the U.S. release of Hero.

The film is set in the third century B.C. during China's brutal "warring states period," when seven kingdoms vied to create one nation.

Hero's story centers on the Kingdom of Qin and its ruthless king, the most determined of the seven rulers to become China's first emperor, thus attracting numerous assassins. In Hero, three assassins in particular are after the king, who promises great power and wealth to anyone who can defeat all of them.

The film opens with Nameless, a provincial sheriff played by Li, coming to visit the king after successfully defeating the three. As Nameless tells his tale, we see the battles that ensued, starting with Nameless and Sky, played by Yen.

Their fight takes place in a rain-drenched stone courtyard, much of it played out in the combatants' minds before the first sword flies. The swords and slippery surface would appear to raise the degree of difficulty for the scene, though Yen shrugs it off as all in a day's work.

"General audiences would think using a weapon is more complicated and difficult," Yen says. "But bare hands is actually the highest expectation.

"In a performance that requires only hands and legs, there's no cheating. Everything is what you get is what you see. In swordplay, if I'm using a spear, my spear is already manipulating your view as a weapon. ... Then your hands might be a little bit off and your stances less perfect, but because you have an extension, the focus is on the extension."

Yen says that after cutting his teeth in Hong Kong action films there were no expectations of safety. "We have to know what we are doing. Accidents do happen, but that's part of life."

The film's striking visuals are also nothing new for Asian audiences, Yen said. Hero utilizes dominant primary colors and scenes of swirling leaves and flying arrows to create images that last long after leaving the theater.

"A lot of Hong Kong action films, and especially epic films, that's the approach we always have," Yen says. "Asian philosophy and culture always has an artistic beauty behind it. This brings the level up to stunning."

Despite the action and beauty, conventional wisdom is that a subtitled movie steeped in Chinese history might be a hard sell with the multiplex crowd.

But Yen says audiences have been primed for Hero by the success of another Chinese import, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), to which Hero has been widely compared.

"It's a fair comparison," Yen says. "If one successful film comes out, obviously, it sets a standard.

"I can't say which movie is better. It depends on what you're looking for. Both directors, Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou, have different ways of looking at Chinese culture. Crouching Tiger, the theme was based on the southern part of China. It's softer, more delicate. You can tell that by the clothing and the way the people express themselves, the gestures.

"Zhang Yimou grew up in the north, and if you look at all of his previous films, they're all about northern Chinese people -- more passionate, more direct, more aggressive."

It's a testimony to the disparities of the U.S. and Chinese economies that Hero stands as the Chinese box office champ, grossing $27 million in domestic receipts -- a modest return, at best, in the United States -- while Crouching Tiger holds the distinction of being the first foreign-language film to take in $100 million in the United States.

Obviously, a bigger payday is part of the appeal of a U.S. release for Hero. But Yen says there was a larger purpose in taking the film around the world.

"I think, I'm sure Zhang Yimou wanted to bring the world a little bit closer, and what better way to do that than film?" Yen says. "Crouching Tiger really broke ground, being the first foreign film to be introduced to such a large audience, and the audience embraced it," Yen said. "That shows the world is not as closed-minded as it was decades ago and is ready to cross cultures a lot more than before and understand another country's cultures and histories. Hero is just an extension of that."

'Hero' returns asian cinema to forefront