"House of Flying Daggers"

House of Flying Daggers (2004): 7/10

Poster (c) Sony Pictures Classics

Although I was extremely upset that people thought that Quentin Tarantino directed Hero, at least it got people thinking about the movie. House of Flying Daggers, directed by Zhang Yimou of Hero fame, is quite similar to Hero (although Tarantino had even less to do with this one), in that it mainly relies on stunning visuals to tell its story. And those visuals are STUNNING. Both take place back in a time no one can remember, and deal with martial artists. And although Hero was Rashomonesque, Flying Daggers was pretty much original. However, the story lacked where Hero's was great.

Policemen Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Leo (Andy Lau) try to find the House of Flying Daggers, an underground anarchist group. They suspect Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a blind showgirl at a house of ill repute, of being in the Flying Daggers. Jin leads Mei out to flee from the police, but in reality tries to capture her and the rest of the Flying Daggers.

The fight scenes (after all, this is an action movie) are both better and worse than Hero (I know I shouldn't just compare these two movies, but considering I don't know much about the genre, I fear I must). While Flying Daggers's fight scenes were cooler (I loved that one with all of the bamboo), they were few and far between. It seems like the story was (for some reason) attached to the love triangle shared by Jin, Leo, and Mei, when in fact it was basically a subplot, something that could have almost been forgotten about. There must be fifteen minutes of the movie with Mei making out with either Leo or Jin. Personally, I felt like it dragged the movie down. But the few fight scenes that were there was breathtaking to look at-it wasn't as "color-significant" as Hero, but it was still damn amazing-especially the climactic snow-fighting scene (which was incidental). Snow seems to make fight scenes better (see also: Kill Bill: Volume One), and here is no exception. Some of the cinematography is great, but nothing as spectacular as things we've seen before.

Many people criticized Hero for its lack of story, but I thought that that story was great (at least it had one, unlike Rashomon), but Flying Daggers's plot is almost nonexistent, at least until the last 45 minutes or so, where things happen left and right, and you can't follow what's happening. It's almost like an afterthought ("Let's put the romance first, then the action, THEN the plot!". Obviously, a deep story isn't the most crucial aspect of the movie, but it was annoying. But some of the aspects of the movie are just so cool you can forget about it-like the Echo Game. Some of the aspects (third use of the word in three sentences-not bad) of ancient Chinese culture are very interesting, and as they're showcased here, they're interesting to learn.

Ziyi does a great job as the blind girl-she had to learn all of the fighting movies WITHOUT looking at anything. Both Lau and Kaneshiro were pretty good, but acting's not the strong point in movies like this. Something else that wasn't strong was the attempt to give the movie a theme song. It was just lame. If you saw (and liked, obviously) Hero, you should give House of Flying Daggers a shot. It's not as good as the former, but it's still pretty good.

Rated PG-13 for sequences of stylized martial arts violence, and some sexuality.

Review Date: December 23, 2004