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Review
by Kozo: |
Former arthouse darling Zhang Yimou attempts further commercial
acclaim with the sumptuous swordplay film House of Flying
Daggers. Unlike Hero, Zhang's previous stab at
swordplay cinema, House of Flying Daggers is not an
epic, but an intimate love story about people who will gladly
throw honor and duty out the window for love. These people
also happen to be martial arts superheroes, and thanks to
action coordinators Ching Siu-Tung and Cai Li, they do seem
the part. In fact, their status as supreme ass kickers is
much more convincing than their ardent passions. The overwrought
love story is more scripted than felt, and the characters
come off a little cold. This is gorgeously made stuff, but
its emotions feel more calculated and clinical than affecting
or authentic. That could ultimately turn off more discerning
viewers, but for many the stunning style of House of Flying
Daggers could likely be enough.
The plot of HOFD seems
like standard swordplay stuff. Towards the end of the Tang
Dynasty, the rebel group known as the House of Flying Daggers
occupies the attentions of the Emperor's guard. Police deputies
Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Leo (Andy Lau) are charged with
rooting out members of the secret society, and act quickly
when rumors contend that a new girl at the Peony Pavilion
brothel is in fact a member of the House of Flying Daggers.
Jin goes undercover as a customer to bring her in, but she
turns out to be the blind, stunningly gorgeous Mei (Zhang
Ziyi), who's a great dancer and pretty handy with a blade,
too. The boys drag her in to get more info out of her, but
she's as tightlipped as she is unable to see. Despite the
threat of torture, she's not about to reveal the true leader
of the Flying Daggers.
Which leads to Plan B. Leo suggests
that they can get more out of Mei by faking her escape, and
orders Jin to pretend to be a Flying Dagger sympathizer to
break her out of jail. He complies, and soon Jin—now
calling himself Wind—flees with Mei at his side. It's
all a ruse, of course. The soldiers, led by Leo, are actually
in close pursuit, and waiting for Jin to use his roguish charms
on Mei until she cracks and takes him straight to the House
of Flying Daggers. It's a reasonable plan, but one with a
few possible flaws. The worst could be that Jin falls for
Mei, and betrays his cause and country. Of course, since the
fleeing couple are played by Takeshi Kaneshiro and Zhang Ziyi,
romance is a given. This is a movie; you can't have that much
great bone structure in such close proximity without some
sparks flying.
Surprise, romance does blossom.
Or does it? The plot seems rather simplistic: the two flee
under false pretenses, with Jin pretending to be a rebel and
Mei at the mercy of her seemingly kind benefactor. Of course,
Jin will betray her unless he falls for her first. Or, she
could play on his emotions without ever trusting him. She
leads him to his doom, and hopefully gets away from the pursuing
Leo. Right? Wrong. There are twists afoot, and Zhang Yimou
and screenwriters Li Feng and Wang Bin are only too happy
to dole them out for minor shock value and even some possible
audience incredulity. The inner workings of the characters
in House of Flying Daggers—and there are really
only four main characters in the film—are given complicated
backstory that gets handed out in such deadpan style that
the audience can either lap it up or reply with a "huh?"
The latter is possible because the big shockers occur with
little impact other than some lines of dialogue and instant
character turnarounds. If you have the subtitles off, it could
be easy to get lost.
The script of House of Flying
Daggers is exceptionally talky, and not given to a lot
of emotional grace. The actors emote in a static style that
resembles a stage play. There's not a lot of character through
action; much of the drama is spelled out in dialogue that's
sometimes stilted and uninspiring. Furthermore, the opaque
narrative renders the characters as somewhat cold, and even
unsympathetic. The bigger conflict of the government versus
the House of Flying Daggers is ultimately given very little
weight, so it's hard to place value on what the characters
are doing. We're supposed to find depth through one or two
revealing lines uttered at the most crucial of moments, but
without anything else to back it up, it feels like we're watching
an approximation of cinematic drama instead of the Real McCoy.
The story was probably very compelling on paper, but on film
its upstaged by the art direction, the costumes and the action
sequences. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was so successful
because it made martial arts superheroes seem like human beings.
In House of Flying Daggers, they never seem like more
than stock characters—or worse, caricatures. If this
film wins a screenwriting award, then it must be hypnotism
at work.
But getting hypnotized by House
of Flying Daggers is pretty easy. One would have to be
blind to deny that the film possesses damn gorgeous art direction
and costumes, and a glorious style that's painterly in its
static beauty. The opening set piece at the Peony Pavilion
is as visually stunning and enticing as anything you'll see
on film this year, and features some physical acting from
Zhang Ziyi that's both subtle and dynamic in its graceful
beauty. Color plays a large part of House of Flying Daggers,
though not in the same manner as Hero. Unlike that
film, the color doesn't necessarily indicate emotion; here
it just makes for pretty pictures. Flowers glow yellow, the
woods transform from a luminescent green to a stark autumn
red, and the multicolored gaudiness of the Peony Pavilion
is award-worthy on its own. The sound design is brilliantly
done, accentuating Ching Siu-Tung's action sequences perfectly.
There's plenty of action here, mostly involving swords, bamboo
poles, and hidden wires, but it's beautifully shot and elegantly
staged. The technical professionals who worked on this film
had better clear their shelves come awards season.
However, the technical prowess
of House of Flying Daggers could also hurt. The film's
emotional center seems more rote than real, and the perfectly
arranged sets, makeup, art direction and action sequences
do little to dispel the manufactured feel. House of Flying
Daggers uses plenty of visual effects to enhance its action
sequences, and as a result, passion and energy lose ground
to technology. Many of the best martial arts spectacles (i.e., Iron Monkey) thrilled through acrobatic daring and
exaggerated action, and not through the keen coding skills
of the guy at CG Workstation #3. Getting annoyed at such technical
wizardry seems a lot like biting the hand that feeds you,
since the advancement of CG means a greater palette for filmmakers
to exercise their imagination, but it's arguable that anyone
over in Asia has yet found a way to marry art and technology
into a truly satisfying martial arts film. After a while,
watching CG-enhanced martial arts feels like watching Jackie
Chan rely on Dreamworks' SFX staff in The Tuxedo.
But CG-enhanced wuxia seem to
be the future of martial arts films, so we might as well get
used to them. If anything, the ultra-cool SFX make martial
arts look more classy than chopsocky, which will make latte-drinking
international audiences get their wallets out. Reportedly,
some Asian audiences found House of Flying Daggers to be a pretentious bore, but it's quite possible that western
audiences will find its mixture of familiar Chinese cinema
rhythms, international-level CG, and Hollywood-inspired romantic
histrionics to be eminently engaging. Ultimately, there's
plenty to like here because after all, this is a damn pretty
film. Everything—up to and including the model-perfect
trio of leading actors—should look incredible at your
local multiplex...so what the hell, grab a date and go see
it on the big screen. House of Flying Daggers is not
a film to displace Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,
and it's probably not worthy of the huge critical accolades
that Hero got stateside—even though it possesses
much more palatable politics than the "imperialism rules"
dogma of Zhang Yimou's previous film. On the other hand, its
visual splendor is tailor-made for big screen consumption,
and the actors and action aren't bad either. House of Flying
Daggers is ultimately only good entertainment; nothing
more, and absolutely nothing less. (Kozo 2004) |
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