Since Crouching Tiger, Zhang Yimou has made two attempts at cashing-in. What was wrong with his previous work such as Happy Times, The Road Home and Raise the Red Lantern to force such a radical digression? Oh, yes, silly me the money, of course.
The House of Flying Daggers is better than Zhang's previous attempt at bastardisation, but not much. Like Hero, it has an interesting set up, but fails in the execution, due to a now-familiar obsession with style over substance. Two government retainers plot to ambush a rebel group (House of Flying Daggers). They organise an escape for a Flying Dagger prisoner (the beautiful Zhang Ziyi), and one of their number (the beautiful Takeshi Kaneshiro) accompanies her "back to base" as her rescuer. En route, he falls for her, leading to conflict with his compatriot (the menacing Andy Lau) who harbours a great secret. There is lots and lots of fighting, some frolicking and, if you're into that kind of thing (I know I am) Zhang Ziyi gets ravished at least four times.
In truth, this potted summary does little justice to a plot that twists and turns like a conger eel, desperately pointing out to the head chef that its tank mates are both healthier and fatter. And, indeed, there do appear to be bigger fish in the sea.
The film looks lush all right (I hesitate to use the word beautiful, because it has an over-ripe quality which grates after a while). The colours are rich, the movements graceful, and the people are beautiful. Is this soft porn (without the sex) or Wu Xia? Like soft porn, for about the first hour, the audience is left tantalised with the prospect of actually seeing something happening. Unlike porn (or Hero), there's some character development, and the chemistry between the two lead actors is, well, there.
Oh, and Andy Lau frowns a lot. He's very good at it. Much better than Jet Li in fact - and he has a much better reason, given that Jet only had that misunderstanding between the emperor, his mum and dad and a squad of heavily-armed Imperial soldiers to worry about, whereas Andy had Zhang Ziyi.
Aiyah! It might have been good, it really might there was no nauseating bow-down-and-worship-the-emperor-he-knows-best nonsense we got in Hero, there were good characters, there was an engaging, if not terribly original plot. But why were there so many moments when suspending disbelief was frankly impossible for anyone with more than a rodent intellect?
Firstly, everyone (everyone) had super powers. I'm not kidding; the guy cleaning the squat loo was capable of balancing on top of a bamboo while simultaneously juggling five swords, singing the Red Flag and making a cup of Chah. As for the soldiers, well, phewee! These cats could formation shin down a bamboo while letting off a volley of arrows. They could fly, make a cage out of shot arrows and, well, anything they damn well liked. They probably had explosive poo if the need ever arose. Surely the point of Super Powers (even in Wu Xia) is that only heroes have them. As has been observed on The Incredibles, if everyone is super, then no one is.
Oh well, let's cut out the line by line analysis and move straight to the stinking dénouement. I'll not spoil it for those wishing to see it. But suffice to say that it remains the only tragic ending to a film I have seen in which the audience was rocking in the aisles in not-so-silent hilarity. Operas have been known to have less preposterous endings than this. Shakespeare comedies have more believable ones. I mean it; even the really, really stupid ones. It's like Yimou is playing poker with Ang and saying "I'll match your tragic death scene, and raise it to by another tragic death scene". Promising, but ultimately pointless. 4/10
The House of Flying Daggers is better than Zhang's previous attempt at bastardisation, but not much. Like Hero, it has an interesting set up, but fails in the execution, due to a now-familiar obsession with style over substance. Two government retainers plot to ambush a rebel group (House of Flying Daggers). They organise an escape for a Flying Dagger prisoner (the beautiful Zhang Ziyi), and one of their number (the beautiful Takeshi Kaneshiro) accompanies her "back to base" as her rescuer. En route, he falls for her, leading to conflict with his compatriot (the menacing Andy Lau) who harbours a great secret. There is lots and lots of fighting, some frolicking and, if you're into that kind of thing (I know I am) Zhang Ziyi gets ravished at least four times.
In truth, this potted summary does little justice to a plot that twists and turns like a conger eel, desperately pointing out to the head chef that its tank mates are both healthier and fatter. And, indeed, there do appear to be bigger fish in the sea.
The film looks lush all right (I hesitate to use the word beautiful, because it has an over-ripe quality which grates after a while). The colours are rich, the movements graceful, and the people are beautiful. Is this soft porn (without the sex) or Wu Xia? Like soft porn, for about the first hour, the audience is left tantalised with the prospect of actually seeing something happening. Unlike porn (or Hero), there's some character development, and the chemistry between the two lead actors is, well, there.
Oh, and Andy Lau frowns a lot. He's very good at it. Much better than Jet Li in fact - and he has a much better reason, given that Jet only had that misunderstanding between the emperor, his mum and dad and a squad of heavily-armed Imperial soldiers to worry about, whereas Andy had Zhang Ziyi.
Aiyah! It might have been good, it really might there was no nauseating bow-down-and-worship-the-emperor-he-knows-best nonsense we got in Hero, there were good characters, there was an engaging, if not terribly original plot. But why were there so many moments when suspending disbelief was frankly impossible for anyone with more than a rodent intellect?
Firstly, everyone (everyone) had super powers. I'm not kidding; the guy cleaning the squat loo was capable of balancing on top of a bamboo while simultaneously juggling five swords, singing the Red Flag and making a cup of Chah. As for the soldiers, well, phewee! These cats could formation shin down a bamboo while letting off a volley of arrows. They could fly, make a cage out of shot arrows and, well, anything they damn well liked. They probably had explosive poo if the need ever arose. Surely the point of Super Powers (even in Wu Xia) is that only heroes have them. As has been observed on The Incredibles, if everyone is super, then no one is.
Oh well, let's cut out the line by line analysis and move straight to the stinking dénouement. I'll not spoil it for those wishing to see it. But suffice to say that it remains the only tragic ending to a film I have seen in which the audience was rocking in the aisles in not-so-silent hilarity. Operas have been known to have less preposterous endings than this. Shakespeare comedies have more believable ones. I mean it; even the really, really stupid ones. It's like Yimou is playing poker with Ang and saying "I'll match your tragic death scene, and raise it to by another tragic death scene". Promising, but ultimately pointless. 4/10