Casual Critic Mini Reviews

House of Flying Daggers (China/Hong Kong) (Sony Pictures) (2004) ***Year: 2004iMDB

Director: Yimou Zhang Cast: Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau, Ziyi Zhang, Dandan Song

House of Flying Daggers is the most recent popular wuxia movie out of China/Hong Kong, following the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. These movies are all connected by two aspects that should never be forgotten while watching them: their beauty comes from their accomplished style and their stories are first and foremost love stories.

House of Flying Daggers raises up to the expectations in the style category. The fight sequences are beautifully coreographed and particularly beautifully staged and filmed. The scenery continuously gives you the feel that the characters are walking through classic paintings and the use of colors is striking as usual. The story is set in 16th century, as government forces are trying to completely annihilate a group of warrior protesters called "The Flying Daggers". Jin (Kaneshiro) is a captain that attempts to earn Mei's (Zhang) trust, hoping that she is the daughter of the dead Flying Dagger leader and that she will lead him and the government soldiers following them to the rebels hiding. As the relationship between the two evolves, the story also twists and turns accelerating towards the climax of the movie.

The ending of the movie is certainly the biggest letdown, as the accomplished style doesn't manage to overcome the gratuitous use of ending cliches with characters that take half an hour to die and then come back alive again... Also, while the ending makes it very clear that the story was truly only about love and not about the fight between a rebel group and the government, one may feel cheated by the entire setup of the movie which seemed to lead in the direction of the bigger conflict.

While these movies are foremost about style, poetry in motion and eploring basic values and sentiments, they also need at least a half-decent story in order to be effective and this is where House of Flying Daggers falters.