'House of Flying Daggers' Review

There are certain films that make you disregard anything that anybody who has slated film as an art or an academic subject has ever said to you. Yimou Zhang's 'House of Flying Daggers' is one of those films. From start to finish, the film is a spectacle, leaving the audience in awe of the beauty that is captured by the camera. With a story that is easily invested in, characters that are beautifully developed and mind-blowing scenery, this film is a masterpiece of modern Chinese cinema.

The film tells the tale of two generals of the government, Jin & Leo, and a young girl named Mei who is a member of the opposing party to the government, the House of Flying Daggers. The film tells a love story, which can be hard to see behind all of the spectacular martial arts and cinematography, however it is undeniably the story of a heartbreaking love triangle. The romance is told between several of the most breathtaking action scenes I have ever seen, with betrayal and plot twists never being far away.

On the back of my DVD copy of the film, it is advertised mainly on the beautiful cinematography throughout. The film prides itself on not being story-driven entirely, taking lots of breaks to remind the audience that film is an art form, with shots looking as close to paintings as possible. With fight-scenes that appear as beautiful as any choreographed dance routine, we are being asked to look at the possibilities and the extent that visual-cinema can now be pushed to in the twenty-first century. Films that make you contemplate the use of the film form are special, and this film does exactly that for me.
The echo dance that Mei performs at the beginning of the film is similar to the Serpentine Dance, a piece of early, non-narrative cinema from the Lumiere Brothers, and this parallel can back my point that the director is trying to take people back to the time where film was an experimental form, as for the past few decades, there seems to have been a halt in the creation of new and exciting explorations of the art (minus 3D technology, which, let's be honest, should have never have even been explored).

The acting by all three main characters is outstanding, the relationship between Jin and Mei being a personal favourite of mine. There is never a moment in the first half of the film where we are entirely sure of either character's motives and the excitement and tension that is given from these performances contributes a lot to the whole film's feel. With an ending that is guaranteed to make even the most macho person in the room cry, the film is a beautiful watch, and one that is well worth taking two hours out of your day for. Every action scene you watch after this film will seem inferior and a lot less poetic.