Film Reviews

SHI MIAN MAI FU (HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS)

Yimou Zhang’s stunning Hero was always going to be a tough film to follow but House Of Flying Daggers proves beyond doubt that China is at the forefront of the emerging Asian film world.

849 AD and the notorious renegade band the House Of Flying Daggers threatens to end for good the already fading Tang Dynasty. Suspicious that blind showgirl Xiao-Mei (Zhang Ziyi – Crouching Tiger Hidden Draggon, Hero, 2046), newcomer at the Peony Pavillion brothel, is in fact the daughter of the elusive Daggers’ leader, two Tang police captains, Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Leo (Andy Lau – Infernal Affairs, Armageddon), stage her arrest and subsequent rescue in the hope that she will lead them to the heart of the Daggers organisation. However, during their voyage Jin, against the advice of the trailing Leo, unwittingly falls for Mei unaware that neither she nor Jin are truly what the seam.

Apart from its Oscar and Bafta nominated cinematography (would you expect anything else from Yimou Zhang) Daggers is a fascinating insight into adaptation of principle into application. The already legendary ’Echo Game’ scene where the blind Mei, surrounded by drums, awaits the intimate beat of a pebble on a single skin before isolating the same drum with precision control over her extended clothing, is a stunning portrail of how to use sense over senses, as well as how to achieve stillness in balance and stance. It is heartening to know that, despite her prevalence for martial arts films in which she has performed some stunning wushu techniques, Ziyi Zhang has never trained as a martial artist and relies on her background as a dancer to perfect her moves.

The blind verses sighted sword fight in the Peony Pavillion and the now almost obligatory bamboo forest scene demonstrate acutely the rich Tai Chi aspects of non-aggression in the nulification of an opponent. Control of situation, will not strength. Indeed the converse is represented in the amazing snow-bound Mexican stand-off climax (actually a freak Ukranian weather storm that initially threatened to curtail the production) between the three, where anger and emotion are allowed to dominate and subsequently negate power and ability with the inevitable tragic ending.

House of Flying Daggers is truly a beautifully made twisted tale of love, deceit and retribution, a contemporary Jacobean tragedy and without doubt one of the finest looking films ever made. Indeed, take any single frame from any scene in this film and it would exhibit comfortably with the finest of photographs.

119 minutes. China 2004.

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