House of Flying Daggers
Grade:
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Plot Summary:
Two agents of the Tang dynasty track a young, blind dancer in the hopes of finding a secret, underground organization devoted to overthrowing the government. The plan proceeds smoothly until romance intervenes. Much fighting and incomprehensible plotting ensue...
Opinion:
After having avoided them for most of his career, "House of Flying Daggers" is Chinese director Zhang Yi-Mou's second
wuxia (martial arts) film in a row, following 2002's
"Hero" (released in the US just this year). While containing many of the same strengths, fans of "Hero" expecting the same quality will likely be disappointed though--"House of Flying Daggers" is a weaker effort in many areas, and will likely turn out to be one of Zhang's most inconsequential and forgettable movies when all is said and done.
HFD, like virtually all of Zhang's movies, has a great sense of style and artistic vision, and, like "Hero", there are many individual scenes that are lovely to behold. For art-on-film lovers, HFD is worth seeing just for the artistic sequences alone--witness the "Echo Game" dance at the beginning, the fight in the bamboo forest, or the closing sequence set deep in a forest covered with snow.
The fight sequences in HFD are decent and, in fact, improve upon "Hero" in certain aspects. I complained in my "Hero" analysis that the fights leaned a little too far towards 'dancing' and not enough towards 'people trying to hurt each other'. This has been remedied in HFD, as these fights are much higher on the 'brutality' scale (while still possessing the artistic choreography component that the more recent wuxia movies are known for)
As a result (in my opinion) the action scenes in HFD are more satisfying. In the early days of kung-fu movies, creating successful fight scenes is all that mattered (and to long-time
wuxia fans, they will probably be worth the price of admission) but, in my opinion, considering the completeness of
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the spectacular-yet-flawed "Hero" I believe the standards for
wuxia have been raised. It's fair for audiences now to expect a
complete package of plot, character and action--and unfortunately "House of Flying Daggers" falls short.
The main problem with HFD is the main plot of the movie--which involves two primary components:
(a) a romance between two people and
(b) political intrigue (and armed rebellion) between the failing government of the late Tang dynasty and a rebel group (the titular "House of Flying Daggers"). HFD spends a lot of focus and screen time on these two elements, and the non-fight scenes are only sporadically successful. The romance itself is just okay--a little on the underdeveloped side, considering it's the main focus of the movie. The actors themselves do what they can (and have
some chemistry between them) but as written the romantic aspects of the movie are only so-so--which really hurts the ending when all the
other focuses of the movie are abandoned in favor of the resolution of the lovers' story..
The plot, involving the Tang government's attempt to find and eliminate the secret "House of Flying Daggers", tries to be too clever by half. The second half of the movie, which contains the standard plot twists where character A is revealed to be working for B instead of C, and character D is revealed to have lying about E, and
"
all is not as it seems" has the consequence of invalidating virtually everything that happens in the first half of the movie. Any movie will lose credibility when the audience realizes that the plot machinations presented on the screen make little sense within the movie itself and whose sole purpose is to pull the wool over the eyes of the people
watching the movie instead. One fight scene in the first half, in fact, is discredited entirely by things that are revealed in the second half, and you're left wondering why in the world it happened at all. (A more detailed, spoiler-filled, discussion of the plot problems is in the In-Depth Analysis section below...)
The ending is another weakness--the movie seems to end at least twenty minutes before it is supposed to, with several plot threads left hanging. The movie, in fact, drops the conflict between the Tang government and the Flying Daggers completely--hinting at a final conflict between them (and showing the preparation of the two sides) but ending without any resolution--not even a end title explaining what happened. That leaves the entire focus of the ending on the three main characters and the resolution to the romance, which seems incomplete and unsatisfying.
Fans of martial arts pictures (and of "Hero" in particular) will probably want to check out HFD when it reaches theaters in the US eventually, and there is, in fact, much in it that's worth seeing. Still, the total package left me not a little disappointed, especially in comparison to director Zhang Yi-Mou's other great works.
Content Analysis: (PG-13, 0-3-4-0 on the Baron's scale)
For those accustomed to the almost entirely bloodless artistry of "Hero" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", the sight of blood (and often a lot of it) in "House of Flying Daggers" may come as a bit of a shock. While the added brutality may make the fight sequences a little more viscerally satisfying, there's no arguing that the violence and bloodshed component is greater. (Especially in the end sequence in the snow, where I'm convinced that Zhang was so impressed by the artistic contrast of red blood on white snow that he may have overdone it.) While still within the PG-13 realm (barely), squeamish viewers make want to take note.
One last note, counting once in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", once in "Hero", and three times (!) in "House of Flying Daggers", I've now counted five scenes featuring Zhang Zi-Yi where men have very aggressively tried to molest her, up to and including forcefully tearing off her clothes.
It happens so many times in HFD that it became disturbing. Yes, I realize we're talking about one of the most physically perfect Asian actresses ever to appear in film...but how about her directors and screenwriters showing her a little more respect...
In-depth Analysis:
Good screenplays (take--let's say--"The Sixth Sense"
and "A Beautiful Mind", for example) can contain 'surprises' and 'plot
twists' which alter the audience's perception of what is true, yet still
make sense within the context of the story.
In other words, if you watch the movie again, the
earlier scenes still make sense (often even
more sense) even when you
know what happens or what is revealed later. Bad screenplays, on the other
hand, (Examples: too numerous to count) throw out plot twists which don't
correspond to (and often directly contradict) things that happened earlier
in the movie--where, upon a repeat viewing, things don't make sense at all:
events happen according to the
audience's limited knowledge of what
is going on the first time through, not according to what is 'true' in the
movie's universe given what is revealed later. These are the movies that
upon reflection afterwards you think, "Wait...if he was really ____ then why
did he do ____ at the beginning?"
In "House of Flying Daggers", we have two Tang
captains: Jin and Leo. In the first (and artistically spectacular) action
scene, Leo gets in a fight with Mei at the entertainment house before
defeating and arresting her as a member of the Flying Daggers. But,
wait...later in the movie we find out Leo is really a Dagger sleeper agent
and his real plan was to lure the Tang army into an ambush. Mei knows Leo
is a sleeper agent, Leo knows Mei is a Dagger member--
so why are they
fighting? Are they trying to fool someone else into thinking they're on
opposite sides?
There's no one else there...
The answer: they're trying to fool the
audience, of course!
The audience thinks the fight (at the time) makes perfect sense, because the
two of them are on opposite sides, yet in real life Leo could have arrested
Mei after Jin's drunken encounter, searched her room, and still held her as a
Dagger member and continued on with the rest of the plan. The
entire fight scene doesn't make sense once you've finished watching the
movie!
The ' master plan' of the House of Flying Daggers doesn't work
either... Leo sends Jin to accompany Mei on her journey to the Dagger
lair--knowing Jin really is working for the Tang. Why doesn't he go
himself? He and Mei could travel together (followed by the Tang soldiers),
then Leo can report later that he's found the Dagger hideout, and the ambush
proceeds as planned. What possible reason would he have for letting Jin (a
wildcard who's not in on the plan) go, instead? (Other than the obvious:
"if he hadn't, there'd be no movie...") These are 'screenplay
plans'--schemes which work in a script for the sake of dramatic movie action
where every element can be controlled by the printed page, but would never be
used in real life by anyone with any common sense...
Random Notes and Comments:
(1) Apparently, the level of blood in "Flying Daggers" was judged to be too much for the PG-13 rating, as some of the blood in the original release has been edited out for the US release (still with a PG-13). Unlike other US releases of Chinese films, though, it has not been abridged by 15-20 minutes, only edited slightly...
(2) There were originally four main characters, however the fourth--Hong Kong actress Anita Mui--died before the start of production and director Zhang Yi-Mou, in tribute, did not replace her character with another actress, but quickly rewrote her character completely out of the script before completing filming. This may, in fact, explain some of the incompleteness of the eventual movie.
