HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS REVIEW

'House of Flying Daggers' comes from the same director & writers as 2002's 'Hero' (a film bizarrely sat on until last year) - director Zhang Yimou & co-writers Li Feng and Wang Bin. As with 'Hero', the film is visually arresting - a blend of divine-cinematography, brilliant choreography & sublime costumes & sets. At times, it seemed one of those films that is too beautiful - one that you could just gaze in awe at - which reminds me not only of 'Hero', but Yimou's earlier 'Shanghai Triad' (as well as visually stimulating films such as 'Barry Lyndon', 'Brotherhood of the Wolf', 'The Last Emperor', 'Once Upon a Time in the West', 'Eureka' etc...). As with 'Hero', and earlier relative 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', 'House of Flying Daggers' blows most sorry Hollywood-movies out of the water (Star Wars, Matrix, even Kill Bill- which was forced to depend on a certain kind of obviousness that feels shallow after several viewings...).

The story is simple - a blind-dancer (Ziyi Zhang - Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, the upcoming Memoirs of a Geisha) is suspected by two captains of a local police force (Takeshi Kaneshiro & Andy Lau) of being connected to an underground rebel-faction, the House of Flying Daggers. What follows sees Captain Jin go 'undercover' & assist Mai in her escape, hoping to lead the path to the House of Flying Daggers (whose leader had been assassinated & replaced by Nia). What follows after that is a series of plot-twists and turns, between the establishment of the convention of the love-triangle and a series of stunning fight-scenes.

There are several standout fight-sequences, though not as many as some may like- the romance-factor may turn off people who just want to watch the fights! The bamboo-fight sequence in the forest is amazing, and along with the fight with the general's army in an open-field, the standout sequence of that kind here. Personally, I thought the snowstorm-fight was a bit disappointing and pretty much reduced itself to simplistic swordplay (less of the flying Kung-Fu style common to Crouching Tiger & Hero here - & nothing as brilliant as that lake-duel or the red-leaves duel from 'Hero').

The leads are all great, and the music is suitably wonderful - I liked the fact that the film went in a different, almost opposite direction, to 'Hero.' Where the characters of that film put the personal, in some cases their lives, to one side in the name of politics and a new order - the characters here eventually forget the political and everything comes down to the personal (which reminds me a little of 'Dr Zhivago', perhaps the snow-denouement creates that?). One drawback of this is perhaps the expectation of seeing the stand-off between the House of the Flying Daggers and the General's army- who are seen closing in on the House's camp close to the end. Then again, this might not be here, as it's the kind of thing more common to Hollywood cinema than the Far East...

'House of the Flying Daggers' is very enjoyable, the love-triangle and forbidden qualities to people's loyalties/position reminded me also of Yimou's wonderful film 'Ju Du.' I don't think it's as good as 'Hero', but that may be partly down to the more personal, less political nature of the story (love-triangles feel like cliches, as most love-songs) & the fact that Christopher Doyle's cinematography is a major fetish of mine! Great stuff, and you know it'll be better than most of the Hollywood-franchise stuff that attempts to imitate it...