Tan Dun is a highly regarded Chinese classical composer who studied at the Beijing Conservatory. He has a good understanding of the Western symphony orchestra, and also of traditional Chinese music and instruments. In 1997 he was commissioned to compose a symphonic work for the handover of Hong Kong back to China, resulting in the work "Heaven, Earth, Mankind". His film music career began quietly enough with one or two soundtracks for the film industries in both China and Hollywood, but then it took a giant leap with the box-office success of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" for which he won an oscar in the "best original music score" category and shared a nomination for co-writing the film's love song "A Love before Time". The soundtrack featured Yo-Yo Ma, the cellist, playing some wonderfully evocative solos. This soundtrack can be found at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
Dun has now scored the soundtrack to "The Hero", a martial arts film which has been compared to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". The film stars Jet Li and is shown with English subtitles. The soundtrack features the Kodo Drummers of Japan, some choral music and solo string playing this time from the violinist Itzhak Perlman. The drummers (and to some extent the unison choral tracks) convey the discipline involved in martial arts training and practice, and the percussive nature of these sections certainly sits nicely with the idea of speed and movement. Balancing these actions tracks are others which are aligned to the spiritual side of the film. The central love theme is very similar to that in "Crouching Tiger" - more information on "Hero" is available at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
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