Year:
2004
Studio:
Beijing New Picture Film Co/
Zhang Yimou Studio
Feature:
3/5
House of Flying Daggers is a Chinese (probably Hong Kong) action movie
with subtitles. A long time ago there were these two policemen, Leo
(Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro). They've been tasked to find the
leader of the Flying Daggers, a revolutionary group that's been
plaguing the countryside.
The duo believe that the new girl at the local geisha house is a Flying
Dagger operative. Leo investigates and finds Mei (Ziyi Zhang), a
beautiful blind girl bent on vengeance and skilled in the martial arts.
After a long fight she is captured but won't talk.
They come up with a plan. Jin will "rescue" the girl and have her lead
him to the Flying Daggers. Everything goes off as planned and Jin and
Mei wander the countryside looking for the Flying Daggers.
Complications arise when Mei starts falling for Jin and vice versa.
Meanwhile "the General" has sent his troops to capture the two and
those troops are shooting to kill.
When we actually get to the Flying Daggers there are three or four plot
twists that change the movie and lead to a bloody final showdown that
leaves everyone dead. Really that's the biggest problem I have with the
movie. It has a rather depressing ending.
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Zhang is beautiful as usual.
Kaneshiro is quite dashing. Lau looks quite a bit older and I thought
his character was more of an older brother to Jin than what he turned
out to be. Cinematography is quite beautiful. The countryside is full
of red scenes and yellow scenes and green scenes. Panoramic mountains
and trees. Well choreographed fight sequences.
A complaint is that there is way too much CGI. Every fight and action
scene has CGI elements. It's fairly good CGI but it still gives the
movie a somewhat fantastical element which I didn't like. And the CGI
does stuff that is impossible to do as practicals but I think I'd
rather have had the scenes be more practical.
Overall, this is a visual great looking movie with a good looking cast.
But the plot is underwhelming and the ending is disappointing. It's a
genre movie for people who like the genre.
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