'House of Flying Daggers'

In the reviews of this film that you've read this week or will read later when it is in widespread release, you’ll almost certainly come across phrases like ‘breathtaking sequences’ ‘visually stunning’ and 'a spectacular achievement in cinematography'. In my mind, these are understatements; I could honestly have spent another hour or two watching some of those scenes unfold in a continual loop. Like the treetop scene in 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' or the three different colour-coded versions of the assasin encounters in Yimou’s previous film ‘Hero’, there were times when I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen anything this beautiful on the screen before’. Likewise, there were times when I looked at lead actress Zhang Ziyi and thought, ‘I’ve never seen anything this beautiful on screen before’.

I suspect though, that a lot of the reviews will go on to bemoan the fact that there's not much else here besides beautiful cinematography. While I'm inclined agree to a certain extent, I'm also thinking, so what? If it's beautiful to look at and I'm not bored and it draws my attention to the use of colour and what can be accomplished visually in film today so much so that I use the word 'cinematography' several times in this post then so much the better.

Is the film completely satisfying emotionally? Maybe not. Like the two wuxia films mentioned above, there’s this tendency to slow down the action in the story as soon as it really starts to get going which, instead of making me understand the characters better only serves to make them a little more distant. Of course, it could also be that years of Western storytelling have conditioned me to expect a certain pace and conflict resolution (why can’t they find happiness, and like, now!?) and in HoFD, this expectation runs smack into an Eastern tradition that conveys a much different truth (because they can’t. With the corollary: get over it!).

The one concession I will make is that it takes too long to end, lurching to its final, pretty frame, rather than bowing out as gracefully as it began.
Highly Recommend.