It was a powerful enriching experience to be exposed to this eastern style masterpiece, as we lay in awe to the plight of two star crossed lovers, fighting for both their lives and for love in a lavish 895 AD martial arts drama, set in a China rife with corruption. The film is littered with so many double agents and plot twists; you would have thought it was a film straight from the filmography of M. night Shamalan. House of Flying Daggers was a commercial and finical powerhouse that finally signalled the wakening of a film nation with the potential to become a giant and finally break America's strong hold on the international scene.
Long ago have I fallen in love with eastern storytelling, which has grown to possess so much vibrancy and wonderfully uniqueness, that is almost completely void of any western influence; which for me is a important thing for the future of storytelling and filmmaking to consistently have a voice representative of so many distinctive cultures and traditions from all over the world, who each have something different to say on; love, life and death. As great as the west is at producing stunning films, it would be ashamed if the world only accepted this style of filmmaking and storytelling to be the only way to go about it, which will cause the art to become homogenised thus losing its allure or maybe even its claim to being considered a art form. Art is freedom of expression and in House of Flying Daggers, director Yhang Yimou as expressed his artistic re-interpretation on love and war in the one of most beautiful ways imaginable.
On the large Daggers possessed amazing fight sequence that were wonderful blends of heart rate quickening, immaculate choreographed piece similar the works of Bruce Lee at his best, yet mixed with the mind bending stunt sequences from the Matrix. But occasionally a minority of the fight scenes were a little over choreographed and contrived, leaving what should have been fantastic set pieces, deduced into fake and sometimes ludicrous spectacles. For example I'm pretty sure that even in 895 AD they still had something called gravity, but the way those dagger soared through the air, you would have thought that gravity was just a newly invented app for the Iphone, so its affects didn't apply to ancient China. Another problem I had with the film, was that some of the plot twist came to often in such short amount of times, leaving me in the wilderness of confusion for a good 20 minutes as I tried to work out who was on who's side, and who had doubled crossed who?; I hadn't had such a brain work out since the last time I had a go on brain training on the DS.
But despite this short amount of confusion, the rest of the film proved to be a magical experience as I grew to love the two main characters, who surely gave the performance of a life time, and if someone's said to me that they had been preparing for these since birth, I wouldn't be so surprised, because they captured both the tenderness of the fairy tale aspect of the story, as well as the tragic side, with never once seaming as if they were acting, instead we truly believed in them and in the story. Which was also helped a lot with a harmonious sound track that provided a smooth, thought-provoking and calmness to balance out the nonstop high octane action, the two elements juxtaposition up against each other was very effective. House of Flying Daggers is a game changing classic that I strongly urge you to treat yourself too.
Long ago have I fallen in love with eastern storytelling, which has grown to possess so much vibrancy and wonderfully uniqueness, that is almost completely void of any western influence; which for me is a important thing for the future of storytelling and filmmaking to consistently have a voice representative of so many distinctive cultures and traditions from all over the world, who each have something different to say on; love, life and death. As great as the west is at producing stunning films, it would be ashamed if the world only accepted this style of filmmaking and storytelling to be the only way to go about it, which will cause the art to become homogenised thus losing its allure or maybe even its claim to being considered a art form. Art is freedom of expression and in House of Flying Daggers, director Yhang Yimou as expressed his artistic re-interpretation on love and war in the one of most beautiful ways imaginable.
On the large Daggers possessed amazing fight sequence that were wonderful blends of heart rate quickening, immaculate choreographed piece similar the works of Bruce Lee at his best, yet mixed with the mind bending stunt sequences from the Matrix. But occasionally a minority of the fight scenes were a little over choreographed and contrived, leaving what should have been fantastic set pieces, deduced into fake and sometimes ludicrous spectacles. For example I'm pretty sure that even in 895 AD they still had something called gravity, but the way those dagger soared through the air, you would have thought that gravity was just a newly invented app for the Iphone, so its affects didn't apply to ancient China. Another problem I had with the film, was that some of the plot twist came to often in such short amount of times, leaving me in the wilderness of confusion for a good 20 minutes as I tried to work out who was on who's side, and who had doubled crossed who?; I hadn't had such a brain work out since the last time I had a go on brain training on the DS.
But despite this short amount of confusion, the rest of the film proved to be a magical experience as I grew to love the two main characters, who surely gave the performance of a life time, and if someone's said to me that they had been preparing for these since birth, I wouldn't be so surprised, because they captured both the tenderness of the fairy tale aspect of the story, as well as the tragic side, with never once seaming as if they were acting, instead we truly believed in them and in the story. Which was also helped a lot with a harmonious sound track that provided a smooth, thought-provoking and calmness to balance out the nonstop high octane action, the two elements juxtaposition up against each other was very effective. House of Flying Daggers is a game changing classic that I strongly urge you to treat yourself too.