House of Flying Daggers
by Chris Knipp


Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers is as visually glorious and spectacular in its martial arts special effects as the director's previous Hero -- but smaller, warmer, and more human. This is splendid spectacle with an emotional core.

In the year 859, we're told, the Tang Dynasty was in decline and a Robin Hood-type gang called The House of Flying Daggers was abroad. Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) are two police captains who set out to trap Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a dancer and courtesan who they think may be the daughter of the recently killed gang leader. Jin goes to the posh brothel where Mei works, and plays a bold and rakish customer, calling himself "Wind," who gets drunk and assaults Mei when she's called out to dance for him. The ruse is meant to cause a disturbance in which Mei too can be arrested. It works that way: Leo jumps in with his men and Mei is locked up in prison.

But things don't happen that fast on screen. Before that we have one of the most elaborate and stunning sequences in Chinese movies. First, to Wind's astonishment, Mei is blind. Before she's taken away, the charming Madam persuades the police to allow her to perform something called the Echo Game: the first and perhaps the most dazzling of the martial arts spectacles. It's a thing of tossed beans and flicked sleeves of robes, of a ring of drums, sounds copied in movements, a dance, a battle, a feat of memory, a feast to the eye.

Mei gets locked up just the same, but she escapes, with Jin following her and at crucial times protecting her. The secret of this film's power is that its elaborate rituals of conflict and pursuit are also emotional -- however preposterous the plot twists may be, there is a core of passion. There's a star-crossed love affair between Jin and Mei, and a three-way love conflict between them and Leo.

The picture begins indoors, then enters the woods -- an escape through an ultra-verdant landscape. Later action sequences happen in a beautiful autumnal field beside a wood. Extraordinary use is made of a forest of bamboo trees, and the final confrontations occur in the snow. The seasons change before our eyes. So do the three principals, who are not, as it turns out, what they first appear to be.

The myths and abstractions of Hero are replaced by passions and conflicting loyalties in Flying Daggers. Kaneshiro, a huge matinee idol in the East, but less seen here, has never seemed so large and so human, or so glamorous: he's an Asian Gregory Peck, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Errol Flynn rolled into one. Andy Lau is a worthy opponent of Kaneshiro, not as glamorous or youthful, but more soulful and sad. Zhang Ziyi varies from little girl to gorgeous lady and combines strength, delicacy and grace in an inimitable blend.

The film is operatic as well as epic. One can be excused for having confused feelings at times, because the movie can be very touching but also preposterous or naive. Above all, it's simply a glorious show. Some critics prefer the melodramas of Zhang's earlier career. They think he's turned all cold and aesthetic on us. This may even be true in part, but the results are too splendid to find fault with. How does one respond? Is one sated or hungry when it's over? Both, really. It's simply hard to imagine where Zhang can go from here. He has turned the wuxia genre into something utterly exquisite. Cinematic spectacles just don't get any better than this.

©2005 Chris Knipp
CineScene