“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

I know I'm like half a year late to write about The Dark Knight. Just for the record, I've never been fond of superhero stuff and never brought up by watching it, so this is the first Batman movie I've ever seen. Unexpectedly, it turned out to be the movie that left me sit in awe in the end.

For the first 30 or 40 minutes it was very boring and almost put me to sleep, but after that the movie picked up its pace and became gradually more and more interesting. This is definitely not just an action movie, it creates darker tone with drama and tragedy related to the true nature of human in real life. The Dark Knight has such a very deep and powerful message left for the audience to think in the end. To me, the Gotham city is an ironic portrayal of our society these days; all corrupted and screwed up, where morality is almost a bad joke to be laughed at, where good people are left in the shadow overpowered by bad people, and where the scale of justice is lost its balance. Also, Each character is deep, complex, and real because there is no one who is labeled as "good" or "bad" It creates a questioning, thin line between the meaning of "good" and "bad" and intrigues us to seek the meaning of virtue and integrity.

Of course, the actors did a very great job too. Heath Ledger in Joker let me to believe that he really is a psychopathic, schizophrenic clown and smart ass who plots against people at the same time. I don't think it'd be right to say the performance of Heath Ledger outshone Christian Bale who plays Batman though. I think it is originally supposed to be that way because bad guys, especially freaks like Joker, can always make good guys look bland in comparison. Isn't it like that in real life too? Good people are very easy to forget and be thrown away! I also love the change in Harvey Dent's character, and I actually sympathize him when he becomes Two-Face. Again, human are exactly like that, we have the darker and bad "face" of our own, as the Joker put it "madness is like gravity, all it needs is a little push."

The end is pure heart-wrenching and sad. The good guy must take the blame, run away, and hide in the shadow while letting the bad one take all the glory. God, I can't take this.

Overall, The Dark Knight has reached a new benchmark that no superhero movie has ever done before. It is one of the movies that left me countless thought-provoking questions. My favorite movie of the year 2008.