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Rating:  -
NOTE: No "spoilers" will be in this review.
Watching a Zhang film is like watching a moving painting. And like Kurosawa and David Lean, who have both clearly had an impact on Zhang's own style of directing, the emphasis is on stylized, fluid motion and lush use of symbolic colors and color transitions, beauty of color and a variety of camera shots are as important as the narrative. The plot line is simple, with a few twists and bends here and there to keep the audience guessing. But fundamentally, it is an "old fashioned star-crossed lovers" tale where people, politics, and the "rules of desire" all clash to a worthy - if expected - climax. One must applaud Asian directors in general for refusing to deliver the pat brands of "happy" or "perfect" endings. The actors are beautifully chosen, and Zhang gives them enough close ups and ensemble work amidst all of the visual splendor so that they are never overwhelmed by their surroundings. They are also highly skilled, using facial expression and "kinds of smiles" with a deft facility that makes long-winded dialogue refreshingly unnecessary and which makes them all completely convincing in their parts. But it does make the dialogue there is critically important, so this is not a film where "tell me what I missed" is an option. I watched it once for the story, and once just to enjoy its magnificence again. The "echo game" dance sequence early in the film is not to be missed and almost hypnotically perfect. Further, those who find Chinese music grating or annoying will have the chance to revise that opinion. Simple where it nees to be, complex where it needs to be, a perfect compliment to the screen action without banging the viewer's eardrums half to death.
A simple tale elevated by a master director to the level of art. Recommend.
Rating: -
No Escape
Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers is one of the most visually exciting, beautiful, and emotionally painful films I've ever seen. From his first images, Zhang plunges viewers into this romantic tragedy - a story full of mysterious twists, life and death action, intense color and design, unique use of sound and music, beautifully choreographed action, sensuality, wrenching conflict, passion and devastating loss.
The film is set in 850 AD during the Tang dynasty, when all of China was in chaos. Caught in this time of great political instability, three warriors find themselves not only fighting on opposing sides, but unexpectedly tangled in a fatal love triangle.
The film begins with a single, bold, bright red brush stroke sweeping diagonally across the bare parchment background. As it disappears, an identical stroke quickly follows from the opposite side, and fades. A drop of blood falls, like a musical note on an empty score. This marks the visual key for Zhang Yimou's drama that is masterfully supported by the film's cinematography, unusual score, and superb acting.
As the blood drops, Dai Ya's haunting bamboo flute melody is suddenly overcome by an ominous crescendo of yangqin dulcimers. The film's title appears, center screen, boxed like an official stamp in large, red Chinese characters - House of Flying Daggers. - Zhang turbulent, heart breaking tale.
As the story opens, the emperor of China is weak and ineffectual. Corruption and disorder are rampant. The country has split into numerous warring factions. One of the rebel groups fighting the government is the House of Flying Daggers secreted in a forest of timber bamboo. Because they have the support of the people, and their members have an almost magical skill with daggers and in martial arts, The House of Flying Daggers is a major threat to the government.
Two local police officers, Leo and Jin, are ordered by their general to find and kill the new leader of the House of Flying Daggers in ten days. Believing that the daughter of the recently assassinated rebel leader is the blind dancer, and rare beauty, hiding at the local brothel, Leo devises a plan for her capture. Jin is to go to the brothel, pretend to be drunk, and order the new girl, Mei, to dance for him.
Leo arrives after her dance. He pretends to arrest Jin for drunkenness. To see if the girl is really blind, Leo orders Mei to dance the Echo Game for him before he arrests her. She performs amazingly. This is one of the most extraordinary scenes in the film.
At police headquarters Leo threatens Mei with torture if she doesn't reveal the location of the House of Flying Daggers. Later that night as part of the ruse, Jin rescues Mei. He pretends to be tired of war and wants to escape with her. Leo calculates that she will lead Jin to the House of Flying Daggers while government soldiers secretly follow behind.
Leo warns Jin not to fall for Mei. She can be deceptive, Leo says. Jin, who has a reputation for seducing women, assures Leo, "I'm a free spirit. I'm always in control." Unconvinced, Leo orders Jin not to turn a game into reality and ruin their plan.
War isn't the real story in this film. It's the stage on which the personal dramas of these three characters are played. The war serves to divert, disrupt and endanger Jin and Mei's journey as they are drawn into more devastating personal struggles between loyalty and honor, and the real enemy - unnoticed and unsuspected until too late - true love, the assassin of all good intentions. Once struck, there is no escape.
Nature's beauty is as much a character in this film as are the humans. The wild meadow first deep in flower, and at the end, veiled in snow, which hosts choreographed battles for life, love and death. The woods of white birch against fallen red leaves through which Jin on his magnificent horse flies like the wind itself. Forests of ringed, timber bamboo with their hollow song and whispering leaves in which the lovers discover their true identities.
Zwang camera is often distracted away from human subjects to the pure graphic beauty of nature. Human characters, dressed in the intricate costumes of the period, appear like exotic blossoms, jewels, within these stunning natural patterns and colors.
House of Flying Daggers is also an unusually sensual film where physical attraction turns into something much deeper and with greater consequences.
When Leo shows Mei the torture she could face at the jail, his hands caress her face and arms and hands as a love's would. After Mei and Jin escape from jail, she bathes in a pool Jin makes for her. To hide her identity, he seductively dresses her in men's clothing. Later, Mei asks to know what her rescuer "looks" like. She kneels before Jin and runs her fingers delicately up over his hands, then his body to his face, to feel what kind of man he is. When they are captured by the soldiers, Mei reaches through the cage that imprisons them for Jin's hand. Again and again the camera closes in tight on their hands clasped together.
Touch, the messenger of love.
In the end, it isn't the war that matters most to these warriors, nor their political commitments. It's desire, jealousy and passion that are their real life and death battles.
Rating:  -
First, i loved this movie... the story, cinematography, etc. is up there and reflected in the dvd related reviews here... no argument there
i just rented the bluray version from blockbuster (i have a samsung bd-p2500 player) and noticed immediately 'pixel dancing' on the screen (i have a samsung 1080p dlp tv.. so the player and tv work very well together)
having worked with graphics some, my educated guess is that the bluray version appears to be a reprocessing of the dvd digital data. the resolution on screen is NOT at all at par with any other bluray disk i've viewed so far. it shows artefactual noise of digital image upscaling
if the dvd version is cheaper for this title, i'd select it over the bluray version as the latter is not genuinely high resolution.
Rating: -
This is a good story, great effects etc- you can see all of that in the other reviews-- my issue is that I support those who say this transfer is LOUSY----I saw this picture twice in theaters and own the regular DVD--
I was excited in anticipation of the Blu Ray as the amazing color palette of the director should have jumped off the screen--
It is no better than the standard DVD and, in fact, looks washed out in some of what should be it's best scenes...
The producers of this Blu Ray should be lined up with Bernie Madoff and shot...
Rating: -
This is my favorite Kung Fu foreign film. All the scenes are excently filmed and edited. The fighting is beautifal, and well coriegraphed. There is love story in it to give it a good plot so it is not just mindless violence. It has blood, but for a fighthing movie, the violence is well mantained, enough I would consider for the whole family. and yes, I cannot spell.
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