House of Flying Daggers - so not Hero

Remove all ads!

Many of you might have just watch Zhang yi mou's Hero, i am telling you this is not his latest and certainly not his best.

House of Flying Daggers (original chinese title "ten sides ambush") is, in my view, far better than Hero. The cast of Hero are great, including all the staff worked on the film, but Zhang yi mou and these people are not on the same frequency. A serious director like him is extremely hard to pair with a impressionist photographer like Christopher Dyole. i like Doyle, it was his style in photography that shaped my way to watch a movie, but he and Zhang just don't click. The same goes with the martial art coordinator who had to design ridiculous stunts to comprimise Doyle's unsual filming style. But now, this film, he finally gathered the correct reactants to spark in his second wuxia (the martial art, pugilistic world) film.

The film was built on plot upon plot, twist beyond twist. The whole structure of the story is like a ring that circle around his and her willingness to "do it" which varies throughout the story. The plots and twists were devised for bigger picture (clashes between clan and govenment) through the effect of these being forced on three character, the film brought out the theme of the movie - love. Thus, House of Flying Daggers is actually a martial art movie about romance and triangular love, not your generic kill the villian and save the world type. Keep in mind, twists and plots they may be, but i am sure most can catch these far when they are coming, which is not really a highlight of the film.

The photographer is not Doyle in Hero, which is important, i think, to show audiences, especially oversea audiences, a view closer to what one might get from typical chinese film. But still, the filming was done just right. throughout the film, if you had movies previously made by Zhang in '80 and '90, you can tell that the scences, the sequences, frames and even filming itself is on par with his previous standard and can be easily recognize as "yeah, that's his work". This i think is important for a director with status like Zhang. He already climbed so high and there is no need to alter his style for audiences like he did in Hero.

What martial art movie is without martial art sequence? As the title suggested, you can expect flying dagger action (only from starts from the middle of the movie). Two other unsual fighting sequences involve bow and arrows. You know by the time you watch the film, you will forget who is Legoles. Also, there is a bamboo forest sequence in the movie and please, do not compare this with 'Crouching tiger hidden dragon'. Comparison is meaningless because it is not unsual to use bamboo fighting sequence. "Courching" is not original using bamboo forest and i don't see people compare "Courching"'s sequence with an earlier film called "Storm Raider" (Wind and Cloud).

Another important thing to notice about is the Japanese costume designer. Bear with me, the movie was set in late Tang Dynasty. Tang Dynasty was the time when China prosper. Japan started to import Chinese culture that time, even sent some Japnese kids to China to learn the culture (if only you had watch Warrior of Heaven and Earth ... ). The kind of costume that they had in the movie cannot come from the hand of a chinese designer, which is not a bad thing. Through the hands of Japanese designer, the costumes in the movie can be more Tang than most Chinese designer acheived. i am not talking about historical accuracy, but fantasized accuracy. These are the kind of costumes that everyone would imagine hero in Tang wore. Also, don't make the lame jokes about Tang the dynasty and Tang the beverage.

As usual, some additional info

Flying daggers are categorized as "dark weapons" (no evil dark, but cannot see directly dark) in the martial art world. People who use them as main weapons are certianly not your typical self righteous hero. The House of the Flying Daggers, or more accurately, the clan of Flying Daggers, well, you know what kind of these people are. And the government, well, they are corrupted, arbitrarily.

Hong Kong legend, Anita Mui was one of the original cast and this was supppose to be her last movie. She died of cervical cancer, not even started to film her part. Zhang altered the script and exclude Mui's character and her name is still in the credit list.

A great Hong Kong star, Takeshi Kaneshiro. His name tells you he is Japanese, but he started his filming career in HK. He started as a good looking but not really talented pretty boy. Did some really bad movies. Not until he started to play in Wang jia wei's filme (now Doyle and Wang, they click) he started to get famous for his acting. Disappered a while, made movies in Japan, disappeared a while, made this movie.

 

Additional irrelevant info:

Takeshi Kaneshiro is the real-life Samonosuke Akechi from the Onimusha series

 

(in deep voice) Impressive, most impressive.