Full Movie-
The house of flying daggers,
Compartir
Today we bring you the review of The House of Flying Daggers while we are following the review of the films that Zhang Yimou dedicated to the genre of action (or rather to the Chinese swords) after having achieved great success international with some of his most powerful dramas (The Red Lantern, The Road Home); In this film the director recovers the wuxia genre to give his personal vision regarding style and visual impression. This film was shot only two years later than Hero, who had represented a great success in terms of criticism and box office, which was a great confidence translated into a good monetary investment for this project that was going to represent something very similar to the earlier, although later it was not quite true.
The House of Flying Daggers
A great romance
The story is set during the Tang dynasty, when various groups threaten the power of the emperor, the best known being The House of Flying Daggers, a faction of professional and almost invisible assassins. Two high ranks of an area far from the capital find out that there is a killer of The flying daggers infiltrated in a brothel, so they set up a scene to be able to arrest her without raising suspicions, but not before observing her dances since, although it is Blind, she is said to be the best dancer in the kingdom. In order to find the whereabouts of The Flying Daggers and find out who their leader is, one of the two pretends to be his accomplice, releases her and promises to take her wherever she wants, even ending some of the Emperor's soldiers to show her she can trust at. They will end up arriving at their destination, but once there it will be when everyone involved in this plot will realize that nothing is what it seems and the tables will be turned to completely change the situation.
As you can see, and if we don't confirm it to you, this film tries to emulate a classic wuxia that could have been done in the 1970s or early 1980s, with a plot of secret, political factions, soldiers and swords, with a great romance involved, many betrayals, etc. and not only in the story itself, but also in the way of telling it, with a fairly linear and simple narration so that any type of audience can understand it without problems, with a story that is going step by step throughout most of the film ( including action scenes from time to time to animate the thing), but that in the final stretch everything is twisted and a thousand things are revealed that the viewer did not imagine to leave us with an unexpected ending and not quite good.
The House of Flying Daggers
Spectacular action scenes
However, there are essentially two things that differentiate it from the more classic vision we have of wuxias: the first is its visual quality and the second, the depth not of the characters, but of the relationships between them.
Regarding visual quality, given its proximity, comparison with Zhang Yimou's previous film is inevitable: Hero; and here we must say that there is no point of comparison since the first one based almost all the strength and difference of the work on this aspect, while this one is not far behind in terms of costumes, landscapes and scenarios, music, colors, photography, etc. We could even say that it is far superior to that of most current films, but the key elements are not highlighted in such an exaggerated way to demonstrate the metaphors that are to be expressed, but simply becomes beautiful to achieve a great film in all the aspects. In this section we would highlight the beginning of the film, formed by two musical numbers with dance, but that represent a whole declaration of intentions about the beauty that we will see next, although we are not going to fix so much for being concentrated in history.
The House of Flying Daggers
A luxury visual section
As for the characters, this is where the fundamental difference lies between this film and most of the previous wuxias, in which history, action and fantasy were everything (after this film there have been others that have copied this aspect). Here the action is spectacular in all its scenes, again choreographed by Ching Siu-Tung (A Chinese ghost story, Swordsman) that this time has created a sword fight very much between reality and fantasy, so we can see that they are an exaggeration, but in a somewhat plausible way; but neither the story nor the action, although they have a very important weight, are the raison d'être of the film, but the most important thing ends up being the feelings of each of the characters, how the relationships between them change and how this It affects the whole story, letting us discover and interpret it throughout the whole movie and turning what at first could be considered as an action movie into a pure romance adorned in the form of wuxia.
The house of flying daggers,
Compartir
Today we bring you the review of The House of Flying Daggers while we are following the review of the films that Zhang Yimou dedicated to the genre of action (or rather to the Chinese swords) after having achieved great success international with some of his most powerful dramas (The Red Lantern, The Road Home); In this film the director recovers the wuxia genre to give his personal vision regarding style and visual impression. This film was shot only two years later than Hero, who had represented a great success in terms of criticism and box office, which was a great confidence translated into a good monetary investment for this project that was going to represent something very similar to the earlier, although later it was not quite true.
The House of Flying Daggers
A great romance
The story is set during the Tang dynasty, when various groups threaten the power of the emperor, the best known being The House of Flying Daggers, a faction of professional and almost invisible assassins. Two high ranks of an area far from the capital find out that there is a killer of The flying daggers infiltrated in a brothel, so they set up a scene to be able to arrest her without raising suspicions, but not before observing her dances since, although it is Blind, she is said to be the best dancer in the kingdom. In order to find the whereabouts of The Flying Daggers and find out who their leader is, one of the two pretends to be his accomplice, releases her and promises to take her wherever she wants, even ending some of the Emperor's soldiers to show her she can trust at. They will end up arriving at their destination, but once there it will be when everyone involved in this plot will realize that nothing is what it seems and the tables will be turned to completely change the situation.
As you can see, and if we don't confirm it to you, this film tries to emulate a classic wuxia that could have been done in the 1970s or early 1980s, with a plot of secret, political factions, soldiers and swords, with a great romance involved, many betrayals, etc. and not only in the story itself, but also in the way of telling it, with a fairly linear and simple narration so that any type of audience can understand it without problems, with a story that is going step by step throughout most of the film ( including action scenes from time to time to animate the thing), but that in the final stretch everything is twisted and a thousand things are revealed that the viewer did not imagine to leave us with an unexpected ending and not quite good.
The House of Flying Daggers
Spectacular action scenes
However, there are essentially two things that differentiate it from the more classic vision we have of wuxias: the first is its visual quality and the second, the depth not of the characters, but of the relationships between them.
Regarding visual quality, given its proximity, comparison with Zhang Yimou's previous film is inevitable: Hero; and here we must say that there is no point of comparison since the first one based almost all the strength and difference of the work on this aspect, while this one is not far behind in terms of costumes, landscapes and scenarios, music, colors, photography, etc. We could even say that it is far superior to that of most current films, but the key elements are not highlighted in such an exaggerated way to demonstrate the metaphors that are to be expressed, but simply becomes beautiful to achieve a great film in all the aspects. In this section we would highlight the beginning of the film, formed by two musical numbers with dance, but that represent a whole declaration of intentions about the beauty that we will see next, although we are not going to fix so much for being concentrated in history.
The House of Flying Daggers
A luxury visual section
As for the characters, this is where the fundamental difference lies between this film and most of the previous wuxias, in which history, action and fantasy were everything (after this film there have been others that have copied this aspect). Here the action is spectacular in all its scenes, again choreographed by Ching Siu-Tung (A Chinese ghost story, Swordsman) that this time has created a sword fight very much between reality and fantasy, so we can see that they are an exaggeration, but in a somewhat plausible way; but neither the story nor the action, although they have a very important weight, are the raison d'être of the film, but the most important thing ends up being the feelings of each of the characters, how the relationships between them change and how this It affects the whole story, letting us discover and interpret it throughout the whole movie and turning what at first could be considered as an action movie into a pure romance adorned in the form of wuxia.