House of Flying Daggers

Movie imagery, which has gotten violent and bad in countless new Special Effects action movies, may have been redeemed by the beauty of the martial arts movies from the East. Zhang Yimou’s 2004 flick, “House of Flying Daggers,” like his “Hero” and Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” brings together intensity, romance and amazing physical beauty. Roger Ebert stated in his review, “To Pauline Kael's formula of "kiss kiss bang bang," we can now add "pretty pretty."”

Don’t focus on the plot, the characters, and the trickery, which are all great in “House of Flying Daggers,” and look only on the visuals. There are insides of rich elegant wealth, costumes of astonishing beauty, landscapes of mountain ranges and meadows, fields of snow, piles of autumn leaves and a bamboo grove that works like a kinetic art drawing.

The action scenes placed in these areas are not poorly done in half-decent and unintelligible center action. Ebert noted, “Zhang stands back and lets his camera regard the whole composition, wisely following Fred Astaire's belief that to appreciate choreography you must be able to see the entire body in motion.” Tony Scott of the New York Times must be making a point when he says the film’s two completely flawless action scenes are probably being “cherished like favorite numbers from Singin’ in the Rain and An American in Paris.” Try proving that anywhere in “The Matrix” or “Blade: Trinity.”

The scenes in particular are the Echo Game, and a fight in a tall bamboo grove. The Echo Game is set inside the Peony Pavilion, an expensive brothel that add-ons in the passing days of the Tang Dynasty, 859 A.D. An undercover policeman named Jin, played by Takeshi Kaneshiro, goes there with a task that the new danger may be a member of the House of Flying Daggers, an underground resistance movement. The dancer is Mei, played by Zhang Ziyi, and she is blind. Ebert noted, “martial arts pictures have always had a special fondness for blind warriors, from the old "Zatoichi" series about a blind swordsman to Takeshi Kitano's "Zatoichi" remake (2004).”

After Mei dances for Jin, his comrade Leo, played by Andy Lau, challenges her to the Echo Game, where the floor is surrounded by drums on poles, and he throws a nut at one of the drums. Shi is to hit the same drum with the end of her really long sleeve. First he throws one nut, then three, then the entire bowl is thrown, as Mei spins in midair to follow the sounds with beats of her own. Ebert said, “Like the house-building sequence in the Kitano picture, this becomes a ballet of movement and percussion.”

Jin and Mei become partners in escaping from the emperor’s soldiers, Mei not thinking (or is she?) that Jin is supposed to be her enemy. On their run, apparently to the secret headquarters of the House of Flying Daggers, they fall in love. However, Jin quietly goes to follow up with Leo, who is following them with a handful of soldiers, hoping to be led to the hideout. Which side is Jin betraying?

Still other soldiers, not knowing anything about the undercover mission, attack the two, and there are scenes of magnificent choreography, like when four arrows from one bow hit four targets simultaneously. Actually, most of the action in the movie is made not to kill anyone, but the satisfaction of the beautiful skill. The impossible is happily welcome here.

The fight in the bamboo grove can be compared to the treetop swordfight in “Crouching Tiger,” but is amazing in its own way. Warriors attack from above, throwing sharp bamboo shafts that corner the two, and then jumping down on tall, flexible bamboo trees to attack at close range. The sounds of the whooshing bamboo speaks and the click of fighting swords and sticks have musical sound. Ebert said, “If these scenes are not part of the soundtrack album, they should be.”

Ebert goes on to say, “The plot is almost secondary to the glorious action, until the last act, which reminded me a little of the love triangle in Hitchcock's "Notorious" (1946). In that film, a spy sends the woman he loves into danger, assigning her to seduce an enemy of the state, which she does for patriotism and her love of her controller. Then the spy grows jealous, suspecting the woman really loves the man she was assigned to deceive.” In “House of Flying Daggers,” the relationships have additional areas of discovery and betrayal that in the end in the snow field are operatic in their romance tragedy.

Ebert said, “Zhang Yimou has made some of the most visually stunning films I've seen ("Raise the Red Lantern") and others of dramatic everyday realism ("To Live").” Here, and with “Hero,” he wins for mainland China a share of the martial arts glory won by Hong Kong and its helpers like Ang Lee and Quentin Tarantino. The film is so good to look at and listen to that, like with some operas, the story is almost not really focused on, just there mainly to get us from one well-done scene to another.

If you haven't seen this movie, and you love this genre, this is another absolute must. I had started watching this when it was available for free On Demand, but I never went back and finished it. Now that I have seen it, I highly recommend everyone to see it.

Check in next week for the finale in "Zhang Ziyi Month."