She [who shall not be named] and I went to the movies with a friend today. I finally got to see House of Flying Daggers. It was about what I expected. Zhang Yimou has always had a strong visual sense and it is very much, perhaps too much, on display here.
Now that he has found his metier in Wu Xia films, Mr Zhang has produced some of the most visually stunning work in moviedom. There are sequences in his 2002 film, Hero, that are as good as anything you will see anywhere. The same can be said for parts of House of Flying Daggers. The "Echo Game" sequence is a masterpiece of kinetic artistry and shows off the athletic skills and exquisite beauty of Zhang Xiyi quite well. There are some wonderful forest scenes, too, especially some that were filmed in the birch woods of Ukraine. Unfortunately these are a few high points in a generally unsatisfactory movie.
Often the problem is that Mr. Zhang goes too far with his techniques. In particular, he tends to oversaturate the colors in some of his outdoor scenes. She [who shall not be named] said that the color schemes gave her a headache. I can understand why. At times the colors on screen reminded me of those in Vincent Ward's What Dreams May Come, which did give me a headache. Zhang also tends to over-use several special effects that were startling when first presented several years ago, but which have now become cliches. I should also mention the camerawork, which is magnificent throughout, and the choreography of the obligatory fight scenes, which is quite good, especially in the climactic battle.
The plot is a mess -- more twists and turns than a season of "24" and you can see them coming a mile away. The acting is merely adequate. And, ultimately, I have the same problem with this film as I have had with much of Mr. Zhang's earlier work. He is part of an authoritarian system that glorifies hierarchy, the power of the state, and submission to authority. These values, for which I have no great sympathy, are reflected in his work.
SPOILERS! In Hero the individual, no matter how heroic or righteous or admirable [yes, even if he is Jet Li!!!], must be sacrificed to the interests of the state, no matter how unjust its demands. Here in House of Flying Daggers each of the three main characters is forced to choose between love and duty. Each of them in turn betrays their master's orders for the sake of love (or desire) and each of them must therefore die. Just as in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon the message is that following your own heart and asserting your individuality brings chaos and destruction.
Yet there might be a subtle counter-message here. In Zhang's Raise the Red Lantern the lesson is that uppity women are to be disciplined and their spirit broken. But this overt message could also be seen as a critique of the pre-communist "feudal" society within which the story is set. There is a similar interpretive duality in Daggers and in Hero. In both films the dramatic tension and emotionally involving portions of the story are scenes in which the characters throw off the constraints of authority and follow their hearts. The overt message of submission is thus subverted by the emotional rhythms of the film. Is Zhang subtly undermining the official line he has to take in order to gain the cooperation of the Chinese government? I would like to think so, but can't be sure.
Finally, the film is a potpourri of influences. One can see echoes of the work of Akira Kurosawa, Ang Lee, Andrei Tarkovsky, Kevin Reynolds, the Wachowski Brothers, David Lean and others. It's cheap fun, but picking out influences is one of the minor frissons of being a film scholar [of sorts]. I just can't help myself.
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