Top Flight
Soaring "Flying Daggers" puts the art back in martial arts

As Master Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou is famed for lush dramas like Raise The Red Lantern starring his early muse, Gong Li. His first foray into the martial arts genre was last summer’s gorgeous, cerebral sleeper Hero (actually filmed in 2002).

In his new martial arts epic, House Of Flying Daggers, Zhang elevates the genre with passion, wisdom, and the kind of compelling characterization rarely associated with any genre, least of all action. More than just a stunt movie (although the acrobatics and choreography are typically breathtaking), it’s a heady mix of bloody action and visual splendor, idealism and cynicism, with a love story that powers straight through the heart of the ever-spiraling plot with the momentum of one of those unleashed daggers.

In 9th Century China, as the Tang Dynasty declines, an underground movement of rebel resistance fighters, the House of Flying Daggers, springs up to oppose the corrupt government, which maintains order through its police force. When Mei (Ziyi Zhang), the blind, beautiful, yet deadly martial artist daughter of the rebel leader is captured, two police captains hatch a risky scheme. Aided in secret by his colleague, the stern Leo (Andy Lau), rakish young captain Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) breaks Mei out of jail and spirits her into the countryside, hoping she will lead the way to the rebel base.

Struggling to earn her trust in ever more stylized battles with armies of soldiers not in on the secret plan (an eerie, dreamlike ambush in a bamboo forest is a stunner), Jin tries to resist his growing attraction to Mei, who wonders in turn if Jin is "real." As the simple-seeming plot grows more complex, and they they fight for each others' lives, the bond between them deepens beyond lust, deception, and betrayal, dividing them at last from their own allies. (With both warring sides exposed as equally callous in sacrificing lives for political gains). The image of Jin and Mei fighting back-to-back, hands clasped, within a circle of enemies becomes the movie’s visual mantra.

Zhang is in no hurry to consummate their union; their coitus is interrupted so often it’s almost comic, delayed until the moment it has the deepest emotional impact on both lovers and audience. Kaneshiro, wildly popular in Asia, earns an international reputation with his magnetic Jin. (He was also the lovelorn young cop in the excellent first half of the cult film Chunking Express). Lovely Ziyi Zhang is poised and steely, and Lau makes an edgy wild card. It may lack some of the poetic majesty of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but sumptuous style, rigorous intelligence, and vital characters make this movie fly.

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS With Ziyi Zhang, Takeshi Kaneshiro, and Andy Lau. Directed by Zhang Yimou. A Sony Classics release.
(Not rated) 119 minutes. In Chinese with English subtitles. (***1/2)
Review published in Good Times, January 13, 2005