House of Flying Daggers - Film Discussion w/ SPOILERS

[trevelyan]

I just saw the film and loved it. Since I watched it in Chinese though, while I understood most of it, there was definitely an expository exchange in the House of Flying Daggers that I missed (explaining the true relationship between Zhang Ziyi and Andy Lau). I also arrived at the theater 10 minutes late, and missed any dialogue/exposition preceding the drum/assassination scene.

So I'm puzzling over a few things:

(1) knowing what we know at the end about Zhang Ziyi and Andy Lau, why was she sent to assassinate him, and by whom? I'm assuming we should assume that she knew her rescue mission was a set-up all along? Does this imply she dropped the knives intentionally?

(2) anyone have thoughts on the pointed use of gender in the film?

(3) what on earth is the "North Wind" poem/reference at the end?

All in all, this film made me confused and curious and excited -- more than enough to forgive Zhang for Hero. I was touched by the way the film used the birch-tree glades to show the lovers making conscious decisions to sacrifice themselves for love. It made the ending of the film much more introspective than any Wuxia film I've seen before -- and made the highly symbolic conclusion touching in a way that made the melodrama more human.

But I'm still wondering and wondering exactly what it means....

Great movie!

[skylee]

Saw the film yesterday after reading the book. Both are just so-so IMHO, though I generally like Zhang Yimou's stuff. I have just bought a ticket to see it again tomorrow.

That is a poem of Han Dynasty. Written by the brother of one of Han Wudi's concubines, praising the extrodinary beauty of his sister. It is the origin of the expression "qing guo qing cheng" (sorry can't type Chinese at this machine).

It is all supposed to be a plot to lead the govrn't elite to where the flying daggers are so that the latter can slaughter them. Xiao Mei pretends to be an assassin, Liu pretends to be the good guy to arrest her, and then asks Jin to pretend to rescue her. Then he charges Jin for the rescue and asks the higher government to send their elites to chase them. Then the slaughter follows. Then of course the plot thickens when the two young ones fall in love and the older man burns in jealousy. Then the plots thickens to such a degree that all of us the audience are lost.

What do you mean by the pointed use of gender? I only note that they use a lot of "wei he" (why), "ru he" (how), which is quite interesting.

The art direction and the filming are undoubtedly very good.

[skylee]

Oh actually "Shi Mian Mai Fu" is a piece of Chinese classical music. You can hear it in the movie, which I guess is performed by guitar, which is a bit strange.

I do like the way Xiao Mei draws the dagger from her heart. Such determination, so much blood.

[trevelyan]

Thanks for the North Wind explanation Skylee. I'll look up the chengyu tonight.

>> What do you mean by the pointed use of gender? I only note that they use a lot of "wei he" (why), "ru he" (how), which is quite interesting. <<

Well... I thought it was curious that the House of Flying Daggers was a matriarchal society than posed a threat to an entirely masculine Imperial system, and don't think it's accidental that it's insinuated destruction immediately precedes the arrival of the snowstorm. There were also a few small tidbits, such as Zhang Ziyi's change into male clothing that made me curious.

Plotwise, I still don't understand why Xiao Mei would make an assassination attempt on Liu. Presumably she would have to have been complicit in the plot from the beginning.

I guess I need to buy the book.

[skylee]

Here is the poem -

北方有佳人 (漢 李延年)

北方有佳人， 絕世而獨立，

一顧傾人城，再顧傾人國。

寧不知傾城與傾國，佳人難再得！

And here is the story from《漢書》.

[skylee]

《十面埋伏》的劇情問題 政府與異己惡鬥

《十面埋伏》的政治 觸及敏感性又避重就輕

Seems that everybody notices there's something wrong with the story - the objective of the mission is lost in the great visual effects, beautiful faces and fighting scenes.

[LiYuanXi]

A friend told me that anita was suppose to be in this film posing as the Da Jie. Unfortunately, Anita passed away and hence the ending is abit abrupt. But even if Anita passed away, the director could have easily find another actress to do the role.

[Quest]

I watched it today==beautiful colors and scenery, too much out of place sex, emotionless dialogues (too formal), with a plot that's far from intriguing. I would rate it a 5 out of 10 just for the colors...

Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood to be empathetic to the characters.

[bhchao]

Saw the film today. The cinematography, score and fight scenes were great (especially the bamboo forest fight sequences), but the story lacked real substance. I actually liked Zhang Ziyi in this movie, and her acting performance was much more mature than it was in Hero.

I don't think highly of this film due to the lack of story, but the movie was quite entertaining and the love triangle intriguing.

[Ian_Lee]

I saw the movie yesterday.

In my opinion, it is much better made than "Hero" and should be one of Zhang's best movies so far (I like "To Live" and "Not one less" more).

Of course, "Flying Daggers" is a commercial movie. Zhang Yimou, who used to make art house movie, is still not quite used to make commercial movie.

But anyhow, it is still better than his previous political crap "Hero" which characters were so faked.

Why do some fellow posters not like the movie?

Because they regard this movie as a traditional martial art movie.

But in fact, Flying Daggers like CTHD, is not a Kung Fu movie. It explores the lust and desire that is interwoven in a love triangle. Remember Zhang Yimour and Ang Lee are both NOT martial art movie directors. Why do they have to change their styles?

And of course, the "Flying Daggers" story like CTHD story, is not a complete story. But why do we need a complete story in the movie? This is not a bedtime story that is told by your mom every night.

But all three characters -- Zhang Ziyi, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau -- performed to their best.

Zhang was so vivid as a blind girl while Takeshi could show the dilemma that an undercover faced.

For Lau, just look at his eyes. It was so full of lust and angst when he looked at Zhang.

[Alveranter]

The movie sucked.. seriously.. I was so disillusioned.. Where were the real fighting scenes?? I mean one-on-one. Not two-on-five/six of the emperors soldiers armed with spears-sort of fights.. The love story was pretty tacky too.. And what about "The flying daggers" plan? One of their member professes to be the blind daughter of their former leader so they could lure a policeman into the woods and kill him.. pretty smart I daresay, but after that, what were they planning to do? Go back home and live happily ever after? The scenery is magnificent too look at however (as is Zhang Ziyi =) but that's just not enough. Hero is one of the best movies I've ever seen.. so I was soo dissappointed..

[Ian_Lee]

The story in "Hero" is outright political crap.

The plot is convolutionary: Every assassin gave up their life even though they had the chance to kill Qin Shihuang because they wished peace would last after unification in order to save hundreds of thousands people's lives.

But anyone who has a rudimentary knowledge of Chinese history konws that in the process of Qin's unification, Shihuang ruthlessly killed numerous POWs as well as innocent people.

And of course life after unification was also hell.

But the whole movie just glorified the virtue of unification -- end justifying the means -- at whatever cost.

Under the sugar-coated cinematography and costume, the rewritten historical version of Qin Shihuang by the movie is disgusting.

[bhchao]

A real-life incident of Qin Shi Huang's cruelty:

He was once viewing the procession of Li Si's entourage from a distance, and complained out loud that the entourage's size was too big. Li Si heard about this remark through one of the emperor's eunuchs and immediately cut the number of his attendants. When Qin Shi Huang found about about this, he was furious because this was a security leak where someone has repeated his words. He demanded to know who had repeated his words. When no one confessed, he had everyone who was with him that day executed.

Not surprising that his dynasty collapsed in such a short time.

[in_lab]

I thought it was a beautiful movie--one of the most beautiful movies I've seen. But it won't be remembered as one of the great kung fu movies because the last half hour of the movie descends into farce. For other Taiwanese people that I talked to, this ruined the movie for them, and they wrote the movie off as ridiculous. For me the movie is very frustrating. It comes so close to greatness, but it squanders its plot in the last hour, remaining a success only in the cinematography. Andy Lau is the only character I was sympathetic to, which can't be considered a real criticism, but it's a little odd for a commercial movie.

[Zingaro]

I've seen - and really liked - all three movies. I'm a fan of Zhang's as well as of other "Fifth Generation" directors. I think some very interesting cinema is coming out of China in recent years.

As a professional screenwriter, my main concern is always with the story/screenplay. All the elements of a film must combine to tell the story. These three movies all had some seriious flaws in the screenplays, at least from the point of view of "Western" storytelling. But all the flaws were, for the most part, forgiveable.

Many of my friends in China don't like these movies. They prefer the "real" kung fu movies, where the actors are true martial artists and the fight scenes are "real" rather than staged with gimimicks, ropes, and special effetcts. I understand this viewpoint, but I disagree.

The older martial arts movies were entertaining, yes. The actors often had dazzling martial arts skills. But they were terrible actors for the most part. Remember - a film must tell a good story, and the actors must be able to carry the story to the audience. Also, many of the older martial arts movies had their share of gimmicks and special effects.

The movies today employ a staggering new technology. Some directors go overboard with technology. They fall in love with it and sometimes forget about their story.

Films are a visual medium. They must tell their story visually. There is an old maxim in film storytelling: You should be able to turn off the sound and still be able to follow the story.

One fundamental misconception about these three movies is that they are kung fu movies. They are not. Yes, there's combat using martial arts and traditional weapons. But they aren't kung fu movies. If you go see one of these movies expecting a martial arts film you'll be disappointed.

[wix]

I saw it a few days ago and loved it. I think a lot of criticisms of the film are unwarranted. Sure it may not have as much fighting action as some HK films, but it makes up for that with high production values (you cannot deny the locations and costumes were amazing) and more developed script and plot.

I think in many ways it can be compared to CTHD. In CTHD they explored the different ways in which the two female leads expressed their emotion/love. In HoFD it explores the way in which the two male leads expressed their emotion/love.

Zhang Ziyi is certainly maturing as an actress. Her role in this film and 2046 showed that she can act, although I wouldn't yet class her as China's greatest actress. In many of her previous roles she was little more than wallpaper.

[Ultimate_Phil]

I love the films by Zhang Yimou but I was a bit disappointed when I saw this film because the ending is not very senseful. There is no real solution, events stop without explanation. But in my opinion, it was better than "Hero" because of the great Andy Lau and Zhang Ziyi (maybe Hongkongs best actress at the moment) and the beautiful nature. The fights were unrealistic but funny and so on the whole, I quite enjoyed it. But other directors like Takeshi Kitano, Tsui Hark or Ching Siu-Tung male bether martial arts movies, I guess.

[Ian_Lee]

Strictly speaking, CTHD, Hero and House of Flying Daggers are not Kung Fu movies but Wuxia (武侠) movies.

Unlike Bruce Lee And Jackie Chan's Kung Fu movies, wuxia movies usually have the following attributes:

(1) The story happened in Imperial China and some are based on martial art novels, i.e. CTHD.

(2) The fighting scene is understandably exaggerated (and tolerated) and a lot of wire-fu is applied.

(3) Some traditional virtues are mentioned in the movie's theme, i.e. loyalty (忠), forgiveness (恕), righteousness (義),...etc.

But lately the delineation between Kung Fu movie and wuxia movie is blurred. "Kung Fu Hustle" is a new genre.

[Chappie]

I watched the movie also. it was in the dutch cinemas also but I had no time to see it. Its the same genre as Croucing tiger and flying dragon?

Kungfu hustle is totaly different. Its more Jackie Chan movie style,

[Azizam]

I watched this movie few times.

These days in my home town one movie festival is taking place, so today I went to cinema to watch it.

I was quite bored, not by the movie but by the lame girl who laughed at some scenes and cheered at the end.

I think this will be one non American movie that we will have in ordinary production here. ;)

So about the movie.

Well I liked the Hero more, somehow the story *although someone sad it is false political story*, is better. The way story was told is better.

Now House of flying daggers, I call it classical Chinese romantic story.

Why do they insist on Romeo and Juliet stories? At least one of the lovers must die.