Three of the most visually appealing films in the past decade-Ang Lee's \Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"" and Zhang Yimou's ""Hero"" and ""House of Flying Daggers""-are the benchmark efforts in a relatively new genre known as the sensitive wire-fu action extravaganza.
These films, despite their innumerable differences, contain elements that remain apparent: a reliance on lyrical storytelling, a tendency to create sympathetic villains, incredibly gorgeous cinematography, and the participation of the indelible Zhang Ziyi.
While ""House of Flying Daggers"" remains the weakest of the bunch, it is nonetheless a stunning piece of work that, despite its various shortcomings, is virtuoso eye candy complete with some of the most beautiful action sequences ever filmed.
The somewhat twisty story, set in ancient China, follows the attempts by imperial deputies Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) to obliterate the House of Flying Daggers, a clandestine group of Robin Hood-esque rebels. Jin poses as a bandit at the ornate Peony Pavilion, a local pleasure palace where blind courtesan Mei (Ziyi) possesses the means to infiltrate the Daggers and later stages a jailbreak to secure her trust. While on the lam, these two warriors fall for each other, complicating matters already reasonably complex.
Yimou's narrative, straightforward compared to ""Hero,"" sticks to formula and seems unremarkable. ""Dagger,"" embodies a grouping of clich??s that consists of stock themes and stock characters with stock feelings taking stock actions in response to stock plot twists. The passionate blind warrior, the lovely but deadly courtesan, the honorable warrior desperately trying to reconcile love with duty-are character types who have populated the screen in nearly every film like this-and neither Yimou nor his talented cast take a crack at transcending these archetypes.
But, in a film this astonishingly beautiful, these notable qualms become almost insignificant. Plot and even characterization are often beside the point, and function primarily to lead into another strikingly photographed showstopper so grand it makes one forget what they were bitching about in the first place. The action sequences are nothing short of breathtaking, and a few in particular, including a demonstration of Jin's prowess with a bow and arrow, a showdown that includes a change of seasons, and a spectacular chase with bamboo-wielding Dagger assassins in hot pursuit of Mei and Jin, are unforgettable. Yimou conjures up jaw-dropper after jaw-dropper, and the notable storyline defects are effectively overshadowed.
While ""Hero"" and ""Crouching Tiger"" are altogether more solid in regard to plot, ""House of Flying Daggers"" is noteworthy because its splendid action scenes are in every way superior to those in Lee's and Yimou's earlier works.
Though the characters are nothing new, the principal actors enliven the clich??s and are consistently engaging even when the story is not. Kaneshiro uses his matinee idol status to full advantage as the dashing Jin, and Lau is as at home in this setting as he is in urban Hong Kong. Zhang Ziyi, who similarly set hearts a-flutter in ""Hero"" and ""Crouching Tiger,"" effortlessly creates a compellingly impetuous beauty with uncommon grace and elegance. The otherwise cheesy and predictable love story benefits immensely from Ziyi, who single-handedly generates substantial heat in the stale romance simply because she is so ridiculously sexy.
Due mainly to its pedestrian storyline, Yimou's latest is not as solid a film as its predecessors and would technically be considered a disappointment. However, a film with action scenes so consummate and cinematography so wondrous, ""House of Flying Daggers"" is the kind of disappointment we could see more often.
