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House of Flying Daggers Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (for sequences of stylized martial arts violence, and some sexuality) Theater release: January 14, 2005 by Sony Classics Pictures Directed by: Zhang Yimou Runtime: 1 hour 59 minutes Cast: Ziyi Zhang (Mei), Takeshi Kaneshiro (Jin), Andy Lau (Leo), Dandan Song (Yee) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

For the second time this year, American audiences are being treated to a martial arts epic by the acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou. But where Hero was a perfect title for a movie about a courageous warrior's quest for vengeance, the title of the new film, House of Flying Daggers, is misleading. In Japan, it is more appropriately titled The Lovers. Daggers is a more colorful choice, but The Lovers correctly identifies the focus of the film.

Set during the Tang dynasty, 859 A.D, Daggers follows the rapidly accelerating romance between Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a police deputy in service of the emperor, and Mei (Hero's Zhang Ziyi), a woman who belongs to an undercover resistance effort called House of Flying Daggers, a group of powerful warriors who, like the famous "Merry Men," steal from the rich and give to the poor.

Zhang Ziyi plays the beautiful Mei

Jin first encounters Mei while investigating rumors that a brothel called Peony Pavilion is harboring a Flying Daggers agent. Enthusiastic about his assignment, he poses as a customer and teases the beautiful courtesans until they introduce him to "the new girl." He's astonished by Mei's beauty, but even more so by the fact that she is blind.

Overcome with lust, Jin nearly rapes Mei right there in full view of everyone, and he has to be apprehended by his superior officer, Leo (Andy Lau), who proceeds to test Mei himself. What follows is one of several applause-worthy sequences—a dance challenge called "the Echo Game" that might as well be titled "Dance of the Very Long Sleeves." Mei may be blind, but her hearing, her intuition, and her dancing are almost superhuman.

Takeshi Kaneshiro plays the impetuous Jin, aka 'Wind'

But her beauty may be her strongest weapon. It inspires a rescue that enables her to flee into the wilderness with an unlikely companion—Jin. Infatuated, Jin declares that he's abandoning his post in order to join the Flying Daggers. Forget about his police duties—Jin calls himself "the Wind" because he likes to live free of any binding commitments. Hoping to shape him into a more suitable suitor, Mei quips, "I want the wind to stop and think."

Mei's gravity-defying talents are not limited to dancing. Her pursuers quickly learn that they're no match for the blind warrior. But as Jin and Mei fight their way out of close calls, we're led to wonder if she's being deceived. Is Jin being honest about his love? Or is he a liar and an opportunist?

Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Mei (Zhang Ziyi)

Daggers' battle scenes, like Hero's, are beautifully choreographed—they almost qualify as dances—and exquisitely filmed by Zhao Xiaoding. The Peony Pavilion is as ornate as a palace, the opulence distracting us from the action in the foreground. Later, the flirtatious fugitives are surrounded by sword-bearing soldiers in a field full of yellow flowers. At times, there's a comic book quality to the combat: daggers and arrows move as smartly as heat-seeking missiles. A conflict in a forest concludes with the most thrilling exhibition of archery since Legolas pincushioned the orcs in The Fellowship of the Ring. The most awe-inspiring sequence takes place in a patch of sky-high bamboo—the camera gazes up at a shadowy army leaping through the branches of a green ceiling, the soldiers hurling sharpened bamboo spears which whistle like flutes as they descend toward their targets. The climactic battle takes place in snow that wipes detail from the screen, so that a single drop of red blood, echoing the single drop of red ink that opens the film, is shocking.

The awe-inspiring visual experience of House of Flying Daggers is almost a match for its predecessor. Hero looked as though it would stand as the pinnacle of the wuxia genre for years to come. But here, the director has risen to challenge his own standard-setting work. Viewers will argue over which film is superior.

The fight scenes are so gorgeously choreographed they're almost like dances

They differ in many ways. Shigeru Umebayashi's Daggers score is more beautiful and melodramatic than Tan Dun's Hero soundtrack. Whereas Hero's special effects were seamless, Daggers' digital animation is obvious and at times distracting. This is a tale told in close-ups; Hero tended toward vast panoramic scenes. Hero's dialogue was heavy and solemn, but this script, co-written with Yimou by Li Feng and Wang Bin, boasts some witty banter between "the lovers," who tease and test each other with lines as sharp as their weapons.

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