Nothing is as poetically invigorating as watching two warriors, beautifully dressed and appearing weightless, float effortlessly through a barrage of bamboo spears and shimmering blades in order to save their own lives.
It is this visual poetry that makes director Yimou Zhang’s new film, “House of Flying Daggers”, a gem to behold.
The story follows two police men, Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Leo (Andy Lau), during the dying days of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, 859 A.D., who are charged with the duty of bringing about the end of an underground resistance group called the House of Flying Daggers.
When the men learn that a woman named Mei (Ziyi Zhang ) in the local brothel may be involved with the Daggers, they devise a plan to make her lead them back to the group’s hideout.
Everything works according to plan as Leo has the woman placed under arrest and then Jin, disguised as a swordsman named Wind, gains her trust by breaking her out of prison and then escorting her to the Dagger refuge.
All along their route, Jin sneaks behind Mei’s back and marks their path so that Leo and his band of warriors can follow along and strike the Daggers when the time is right.
But nothing ever goes according to plan.
As time passes, Jin finds himself falling in love with Mei, and his loyalty to Leo and his government becomes less and less important.
Soon, Mei and Jin find themselves in a field surrounded by Tang soldiers who have not been informed of the fact that Jin is undercover.
As Jin tries to reason with the soldiers, without letting Mei know his true intentions, blood is spilled, and what was once a simple follow-the-leader operation now becomes a battle to the death on the hills of China.
With Jin’s plans falling apart and his love for Mei growing, he must risk everything to keep himself and Mei alive.
This plot line, although interesting, is a bit stale and the dialogue often feels more forced and over dramatic than it should be.
Fortunately, the whole movie is so visually stunning that the viewer really does not care in the end.
One of the most exciting scenes in the movie to watch is when Jin and Mei get surrounded by the unknowing Tang soldiers and the deadly battle ensues.
With menacing low-angle tracking shots of the soldiers running through the field, weapons in hand and brutal expressions on their faces, the sense of hopelessness is overwhelming as the soldiers try to surround Jin and Mei.
The choreography of the scene is stunning as the fighters bounce back and forth against each other like the ebb and flow of a small wave over the hills.
At one point Mei jumps above the soldiers’ heads and then lands on their raised shields. While banging her staff on top of the soldiers, she dances from one shield to the next, with the grace and beauty of a butterfly resting on rose petals.
Another scene, in which Jin and Mei become trapped by Tang soldiers in a bamboo forest, is just as poetically driven.
As the camera runs along-side Mei and Jin, the sounds of bamboo spears screaming through the air are heard. In the tree-tops, armed soldiers are seen scurrying down head-first like giant blood-thirsty beetles. On the ground, more soldiers are approaching, armed to the teeth with blades and bows. The bamboo trees become a cage from which there can be no escape.
Although scenes like these make House of Flying Daggers a great movie to watch, it is far from perfect. Most of the enjoyment of the film is obtained from the beauty and skillfulness of the action sequences alone, which causes the story structure and character development to take a back-seat.
The ending also leaves something to be desired because of its predictability and the amount of unanswered questions still left in the viewer’s mind as the theater staff begin sweeping the half-eaten popcorn off the floor.
Despite these shortcomings, Zhang has once again created a flower of operatic poetry for the silver screen that will never lose a petal.
