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jim [ 8.0 ]
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Zhang Yimou helms another movie of high-flying swordplay set against a backdrop of ancient Chinese history--again featuring Zhang Ziyi, only this time with more sex and less politics. Between House of Flying Daggers and Hero, you get the sense that he really wishes he had made Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon instead of Ang Lee.
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DokBrowne [ 4.5 ]
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My accuracy in gauging the quality of a movie is usually pretty good, in that, given a nominal margin of error, I'm never surprised by my ultimate opinion of whatever I see. That makes this one of the most disappointing films I've ever seen. I was confident that it would be the equal of "Hero", a poetic masterpiece of all-around filmmaking, and 99% of critics even argue that it's BETTER, but what did I end up seeing? A drawn-out, lackluster opera of soap opera convention wrapped in derivative "showstopping" martial arts fantasia. Seriously, Zhang Yimou is a proven artist; the last thing I would expect from a film like this is for it to be boring, or lame, but the last half consists of nothing but typical love triangle melodrama performed with the most ordinary, basically PAINFULLY worn out scenarios and conversations. It was like watching the kung fu ballet adaptation of a trashy harlequin romance novel. Not only that, but the plot is heavily repetitive and hinges again and again upon randomly assigned deus ex machinas - Zhang Ziyi is saved at the last moment from rape or murder by either of her 2 suitors or the Flying Daggers about 9 times. Every action sequence concludes with the protagonists being rescued by the daggers or arrows of someone who just arrived in the distance. For that matter, what's up with the mystical omnipotence of Asian people? This has become a tad absurd in movies like this. A character can know anything the plot requires him/her to - even though it's this eternal expanse of countrysides, there's a contrived lack of privacy in this world. Leo shows up whenever he needs to stop Zhang Ziyi or chat with Jin or be privy to secret information against him, and likewise, Ziyi seems capable of hearing and/or finding out anything except when the plot doesn't want her to. Not only that, but the movie pulls all its punches. On two different occasions we get the classic (read: predictably misleading) moment where a character is sent to be executed, and have their killer swing the sword at them scarily only tooooo...cut the ropes they're tied in and set them free. The first half of the movie blatantly expresses its use of the old-as-hell concept of a guy going undercover to infiltrate a hostile underworld only to GO TOO FAR and get seduced by the people in it. Then the second half is ushered in by a series of silly revelations about the characters that rivals "Wild Things" for the sheer quantity and rapid-fire succession of plot twists it throws at the audience. By the time you get the "real" story figured out it's more or less completely (and pointlessly)backwards and hence negligible on a dramatic level. The worst thing is that it continues to take itself gravely serious even after all those ridiculous shocks. A single tear trickles down a spotless cheek about 12 times, lovers bid tragic goodbyes and then turn around to reunite, swordfighting rivals deliver precisely matching wounds onto eachother, etc. you get the idea. It's a consortium of cliches played out under the annoying pretense of artful profundity. And the martial arts aren't even that impressive. Action-wise, "Flying Daggers" is to "Hero" as "Matrix Revolutions" is to the original "Matrix" - a half-hearted photocopy with all the wear-n-tear far more noticeable this time around. Some of it is impressive or at least fun to watch, but overall there's an absence of the grace and grandeur from "Hero" and "Crouching Tiger". Someone whose opinion I respect told me that the eye candy in this movie makes "Hero" look like a Troma production, but really, aside from the admittedly gorgeous color schemes and scenery, it's not even 1/3rd as dazzling as any given scene in "Hero", and even those cool colors and set designs were easily superior in "Hero" (and they even serviced the plot there, whereas here the visuals and even many of the battles just feel like they were forced in without any better purpose than to look cool). And that drum-playing game of "Simon" in the beginning? Unimpressive. The only other profit I'll grant the movie is that Zhang Ziyi is one of the most beautiful women on earth, but that would still be true even if she were starring in "Air Bud 6", so it's not much to the film's credit.
Conclusion: the acting is decent (unremarkable, though Ziyi and the guy who plays Jin are very attractive and appealing), the action is mostly average, the pacing is lugubrious, the LOOK of the movie is fantastic though overly reminiscent of its predecessors without either equaling or building upon their accomplishments), and the screenplay is very, very bad in many ways.
Stunningly 'eh'.
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jeff_v [ 7.5 ]
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If I had two Zhang Yimou films like Hero and House of Flying Daggers to watch each year, I'd be a happy man. More melodramatic than the earlier release, but also without the disturbing political subtext, Daggers is a wuxia spectacle of the highest order. It stretches itself thin with its overblown climax, and I found myself missing Tony Leung, but there are too many scenes that made me go damn! to discount it too harshly.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.5 |
| No. Ratings | : 5 | |
| No. Reviews | : 4 | |
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