Written by Linda
March 07, 2009
Do you have any idea how it pains me to give House of Flying Daggers a middling review?
If you are a regular reader of mine, you are probably not surprised to hear that Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers was near the top of my Must See list for 2004. The film stars Zhang Ziyi, hot from Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon! That very VERY pretty actor Takeshi Kaneshiro (featured in Turn Left Turn Right and Chungking Express among others) stars as the love interest swordsman! That stalwart Andy Lau, who has always been so rock-solid cool in his films, completes the triangle! And to top it off, it is directed by master Zhang Yimou, who seems to have taken a new interest in a very traditional style of Chinese film: the good old swordsman epic. What's not to like?
So... what happened?
I think after all the praise heaped upon Hero (which actually came out two years before Flying Daggers, despite the one-after-another U.S. theatrical releases), maybe Yimou got a bit cocky and a bit lazy. Flying Daggers is a by-the-numbers adventure, with some silly romance thrown in, and lots of fight scenes. Yimou could have directed this with his eyes closed. For all I know, he did.
Zhang Ziyi plays a blind swordswoman named Mei, who is rumored to be a member of the rebellious and dangerous pack of fighters called the House of Flying Daggers. Their weapon of choice? Yes, a flying dagger. And they have pretty darn good aim, I must say (which accounts for some good special effects). Anyways, Mei gets captured by government soldiers who decide to use her as bait to get to the leader of the House. One officer Jin (pretty boy Takeshi Kaneshiro) goes undercover to spring her escape and "protect" her from the soldiers on her tail. Except the guy in charge of the chase, Leo (Andy Lau) has some of his own designs in regards to the couple on the run.
Unsurprisingly, Flying Daggers has great action and fight scenes, in particular one in a bamboo forest, which combines the aerial fighting wizardly we've come to expect with some crazy Cirque de Soleil acrobatics. The actors give it their all in emoting, and their hair and billowy sleeves blow nicely in the wind. And, impressively, Zhang Ziyi gets her top ripped off at least three times (might have even been four, but I was so startled by the trend that I lost count). So there should be something for everyone.
But I think this time around Yimou got caught up in his own sweeping vision. The dialogue is clunky and stilted. The cinematography seems lackluster and pedestrian compared to Hero (which nothing can compare to, really). The music swells dramatically, and, at least at my screening, caused some unintentional laughter at its earnestness in rather silly moments. The plot plods along, making the movie seem longer than its two hours. And we're not going to even talk about the final fight sequence, with a straight-from-Hollywood twist that had my audience guffawing (when I'm quite sure it was not supposed to).
So in the end, I sadly crossed House of Flying Daggers off of my Must See list. Alas, I'm quite sure that's the last list it will appear on, except maybe Biggest Disappointments of 2004.
