Release Date:
TBA
Director
Zhang Yimou (Hero, Shanghai Triad, Raise the Red Lantern)
Screenwriters
Zhang Yimou
Li Feng
Wang Bin
Actors
Takeshi Kaneshiro (Jin)
Andy Lau (Leo)
Zhang Ziyi (Mei)
Song Dandan (Yee)
Synopsis
House of Flying Daggers" (aka "Shi Mian Mai Fu" [China], aka "Lovers" [Japan]) is set in the year 859 AD as China's once flourishing Tang Dynasty is in decline.
Unrest rages throughout the land, and the corrupt government is locked in battle with rebel armies that are forming in protest. The largest and most prestigious of these is the "House of Flying Daggers," which is growing ever more powerful under a mysterious new leader.
Two local captains, Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) are ordered to capture this new leader. As part of their elaborate plan, Captain Jin will pretend to be a lone warrior called Wind and will rescue the beautiful, blind revolutionary Mei (Zhang Ziyi) from prison, earning her trust, and escort her to the secret headquarters of the House of Flying Daggers. The plan works, but to their surprise, Jin and Mei fall deeply in love on their long journey to the House.
Danger lurks in the forest surrounding them, and the wind is still, as if sensing the tension in the air. What lies ahead for Jin and Mei, these star-crossed lovers? If this is true love, then why are there plots in their heads...and secrets in their hearts?
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.themoviebox.net%2Fmovies%2F2004%2FDEFGH%2FHouseOfFlyingDaggers%2Fimages%2Fmain.jpg&hash=c96608aa21ceb61bc0e81b7afaf45313b0970d24)
Trailer Here (http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2004/DEFGH/HouseOfFlyingDaggers/trailer.html)
in Real and Media Player formats.
i'm all for a Zhang Ziyi comeback.
I heard from some Chinese paper that from the first press screening, them journalists weren't too impressed. the observation was that the film moved at such a fast paced, that people didn't even know it's over until it was over, and that there was only some scattered applause in the end.
hope them's lying. but the fight in the bamboo forest looks like it's trying a bit too hard.
The name 'Zhang' is overrated.
I almost went to see him speak where he was accepting an award here in boston at the coolidge corner cinema, but I didin't go. I think that Raise The Red Lantern is pretty fucking good.
new trailer (rtsp://210.71.186.110:554/200405/movie/Realma_HwsedRsdfdgo.rm)
Shanghai Triad is wonderful.
I'm actually rather mixed about Zhang Yimou. He's made a series of films that I just thought were too Dogville, except lush and erotic and exotic or something. However, "To Live" is probably one of the most soulful films to come out of the 20th century. I would even argue that it's the most soulful film of all time.
I saw To Live for the first time last night. Solid stuff. I love the way it ended. I have to wonder if the praise Mao stuff was laid on a little thick though.
Zhang Readies Another Martial-Arts Saga
A few years back, Zhang Yimou was a bit miffed that fellow filmmaker Ang Lee was faster on the draw in elevating the martial-arts epic to serious cinema. But now that Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has broken the genre into the mainstream among Western audiences, Zhang is happy to follow his lead.
Zhang's Mandarin-language "Hero," a saga of ancient China starring Jet Li, topped the box-office for two straight weekends after its belated U.S. debut in late August. Close behind it will be Zhang's "House of Flying Daggers," another martial-arts historical tale playing at the Toronto International Film Festival and due in U.S. theaters late this year.
"It's difficult to shoot two together in such a short period of time. After that, I feel like I'm getting addicted to shooting martial-arts films," said Zhang, 52, one of China's most acclaimed filmmakers, whose works include "Ju Dou," "Raise the Red Lantern" and "The Road Home."
A fan of martial-arts novels while growing up, Zhang decided to give the genre a try after a string of more contemporary films. About the time the screenplays for "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" were finished, "Crouching Tiger" became a sensation, topping $100 million at the U.S. box office, the first foreign-language film to cross that mark.
Though he felt frustrated that Lee got there before him, Zhang plowed ahead with his films.
"I appreciate the success of `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' because that film did create the market for and the commercial success for `Hero' and `Flying Daggers,'" Zhang, speaking through a translator, told The Associated Press at the Toronto festival.
"Hero," a tale of shifting narratives as different versions of an assassination plot unfold through repeated retellings, earned a foreign-language Academy Award nomination after it came out in China in 2002. "House of Flying Daggers" premiered to an enthusiastic reception at last spring's Cannes Film Festival and may be poised to grab the same mainstream American audience that flocked to "Hero" and "Crouching Tiger."
"I think Ang Lee helped us to open the door worldwide, and we have more chances to bring our movies to America," said "House of Flying Daggers" star Zhang Ziyi, who costarred in "Crouching Tiger" and "Hero" and got her start in Zhang Yimou's "The Road Home." "I think for Western audiences, they are more interested now in action movies, martial-arts movies, Chinese culture and history. Now is a chance for us, but the important thing is, you should have good movies. Otherwise, the door will close, close, close."
"House of Flying Daggers" centers on a romantic triangle involving a ninth century rebel (Zhang Ziyi) and two men whose love for her results in tragedy.
Like "Crouching Tiger," Zhang Yimou's two films lift martial-arts sequences to balletic grace. Combatants float through the air in dreamlike fashion, arrows rain down like swarming locusts, duelists' chase one another through treetops.
The films explode with color, passion, intrigue and doomed romance. The characters have greater depth than heroes of more traditional martial-arts flicks, where the action is the main attraction.
Those qualities could be why "Crouching Tiger" and "Hero" have broken beyond the usual martial-arts niche among U.S. moviegoers, Zhang Yimou said.
"It's maybe because both Ang and I are directors of dramas. We're not experts in this genre, so maybe we're looking at it from a different angle," said Zhang, whose next film will be a contemporary drama. "Maybe there's something special about this type of director shooting a martial-arts film. For example, we pay attention to the story lines, the relations of the characters in the film. We have beauty in the action. It's not the traditional way of shooting martial-arts films."
man, all that critical acclaim now makes him think that he's actually good.
okay. so that sucked.
the first half of the movie was awesome, then came the supposedly spectacular bamboo forest fight with CGI so abundant and so hoaky it made Zatoichi's CG looked like I dunno, Eternal Sunshine of Jurassic Park. and everything went down to shits with it.
I kinda saw it coming, all my friends told me, but I didn't believe them. The first half of the movie was awesome, what the hell were my friends/ critics/ random strangers online talking about? this is beautiful and the fight scenes are cool! this is much more fun than Hero. oh oops look at that hoaky little makeout scene. that's okay hahaha. oh what about that weird cgi arrow--hey blemishes make art right hahaha. I began praying to Zhang Yimou. Hey man, remember me? We met in Boston in May, I was your translator for a wicked short period of time, remember me? It's Pete. Don't be a prick Zhang. C'mon. This is nice, don't get beautiful on me, please? Zhang, hey, what the fuck is this? digital dildo-sized green bamboos?
then the plot begins twisting itself. this is some pretzel-yoga shit. if you think this angry review is corny, watch the movie when it comes out in your trailer park and apologize to me in advance.
so yeah, zhang is pretty much a master (To Live in '94)-turned hack. The world should've long suspected that he's been doing nothing but taking shit, but we were ignorant. we held our breath and pretended it's chocolate fudge, simply because he always sprinkled his shit with big "exotic arthouse" production fucking values. and look, he's made one dud saved by Christopher Doyle and Jet Li, and second dud saved by his reputation (that people will go see house of flying dirk digglers because of all the lame-ass foreign press critics who got assfucked by the digital bamboos and because everyone in the world thought Quentin Tarantino made Hero. meanwhile, great martial arts gems like Ong Bak and Twilight Samurai make their symbolic arthouse circuit stops for a week in some of the bigger cities, and exist primarily in internet chatrooms (here in America that is).
man, fuck this Zhang Yimou guy.
well, 2046 tomorrow and the new hong kong Jackie Chan movie later this week.
Yeah, this is a pretty anticlimactic movie. It's really pretty, but in the last half, I kept forgetting to read the subtitles because I sorta stopped caring about it. I thought Hero was great, but this was a pretty far cry from that.
I didn't think the CGI was on a Zatoichi level, but those flying daggers got sort of ridiculous after a while.
Yeah, Pete is dead on. The first half is the bee's knees, and the second is dog vomit. UGH. I was sooooo happy during the first half that the fights didn't get all zero-G with people flying everywhere (also, I got a chuckle how the first 15 minutes were like a cop movie, I wanted to see 'the chief' come in and demand results). The 'echo game' scene was magnificent. The first forest fight-- rad! Halfway through, I thought this was one of the top 5 films of the year.
And then once the bamboo appeared... crash and burn. Why why why? During the bamboo forest scene, I could imagine Yimou yelling at the stuntmen 'grab those trees to make it look you're jumping on them!' DOUBLE UGH.
Twist #1... fine, I knew this was coming... I'll deal. Twist #2... well fuck, now I'm thinking about how a previous kick-ass scene had 2 LIES in play at the same time-- IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. Don't even get me started on Zhang Ziyi's stuff once we hit the climax. Man, what a letdown. It's not like it turns into one of the worst movies ever or anything... but when the snow shows up, it's just masturbation and the audience is left in the cold.
MAAAASSIVE SPOILER, THE BIGGEST ONE IN THE WORLD
didn't that twist remind you of the Mr. Show sketch in which Bob played a guy who read novels for a blind woman and fell in love with her, then her asshole boyfriend David Cross came in and treated her like crap? the skit's big twist was that the blind woman wasn't blind at all, she just solicited help 'cause she wanted to find true love, then David Cross put on a pair of sunglasses to reveal that HE is blind. It was funny.
Quote from: peteMAAAASSIVE SPOILER, THE BIGGEST ONE IN THE WORLD
Haha, the biggest spoiler ever is when Homer Simpson just saw Empire Strikes Back and says something like 'Who would have thought that Darth Vader was Luke's father' and all guys in line for the movie started yelling at him, hahahaha, I'm sure some moron back then did that exact same thing.
Quote from: peteI heard from some Chinese paper that from the first press screening, them journalists weren't too impressed. the observation was that the film moved at such a fast paced, that people didn't even know it's over until it was over, and that there was only some scattered applause in the end.
hope them's lying. but the fight in the bamboo forest looks like it's trying a bit too hard.
not lies....Do you know what kinda status now Zhang Yimou is in?He's been tring to make a 2nd-class story artistic...yeah we can see visually beutiful scences but it couldn't make up to the bad storytelling...and from a chinese cultural point of views,some parts of that film are even stupid...
you should read my review of the film several posts down from that post.
hehe
was that from a Chinese cultural point of views?
the girl "died" three times in that film...almost everyone in the theatre laughed, that's a silly joke we always talk about here...
and many stupid lines...
well, then those dirty chinamen should go back to their nike factories and make me some shoes instead of laughing at cinematic art.
Quote from: petewell, then those dirty chinamen should go back to their nike factories and make me some shoes instead of laughing at cinematic art.
Is that a kinda threat?
what's the big deal about people laughing at a funny scene in the cinema...cinematic art is another thing...cause I can't find much art in that part, not even moving...
then maybe you should try opening your slanty eyes and stop being so smog because you're driving a BMW 7 series now.
PS. Falun Dafa is the truth!
Quote from: petethen maybe you should try opening your slanty eyes and stop being so smog because you're driving a BMW 7 series now.
PS. Falun Dafa is the truth!
i don't get it , didn't you say that film"sucked"?
Quote from: evaderheadQuote from: petethen maybe you should try opening your slanty eyes and stop being so smog because you're driving a BMW 7 series now.
PS. Falun Dafa is the truth!
i don't get it , didn't you say that film"sucked"?
stop it.
Hedwig, don't interfere. This is like Asian flirting.
I'm not flirting anything.I didn't mean to start any arguing.
Quote from: petewell, then those dirty chinamen should go back to their nike factories and make me some shoes instead of laughing at cinematic art.
was that my problem?that's harsh!
Quote from: evaderheadI'm not flirting anything.
LOL
man , sickfins was definitely missed on this weekend.
Quicktime Trailer here. (http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/houseofflyingdaggers-tlr.html)
I liked it more than Hero, that's for sure.
It wasn't perfect and the ending is kind of a "what the fuck did I just see?" kind of thing. But it certainly was pretty, despite missing Christopher Doyle as DP, but Zhao Xiaoding is no slouch by any means. And that sound design was just as orgasmic as the visuals, particularly in the echo game scene.
Onto the bad stuff... concerning evaderhead's spoiler that he mentioned a few posts up, the audience I was in only laughed the first time.
It bugged me that Zhang Ziyi's character was blind for the first half of the movie. One of her greatest attributes is her eyes. The fact that she couldn't really use them was so frustrating to me that I was happy when it was revealed that she really could see.
The other thing that bothered me about the film was that I can't really tell if it was a misogynist film posing as a pro-feminist film or a film that is trying to be pro-feminist by depicting all the males as deplorable bastards. ZZ is almost raped three times in the film, deceived and almost killed, all by men. I still can't really figure that one out. But its vague standpoint on gender issues left a bad taste in my mouth, as it was clearly an important part of the film.
At the end of the film, I was reminded of what a friend of mine had said about the Wachowski brothers after being disappointed with Matrix Revolutions. He said that the Wachowskis know how to orchestrate individual action sequences but as for a full cohesive story... not so much. I think that that sentiment can be applied to Zhang Yimou, as far as HOFD and Hero are concerned.
But it certainly was pretty.
Quote from: hacksparrowAt the end of the film, I was reminded of what a friend of mine had said about the Wachowski brothers after being disappointed with Matrix Revolutions. He said that the Wachowskis know how to orchestrate individual action sequences but as for a full cohesive story.
Personally I believe the problem with Reloaded & Revolutions has something to do with the amount of praise they received after completing the original Matrix. Imagine if they had been given the funding to just "barely" make both of the sequels like the original was made. Both of them would have kicked so much ass. But instead the funding wasn't allowed until the orginal was overwhelmingly popular. I believe they made something so popular that when it came time to complete their trilogy they didn't feel as motivated to make them everything they could have been. Why take any unecessary risks?
I don't think even the actions were that well-orchestrated though. especially everything that came after the bamboo fight. the first few fights were okay but were all tedious and sloppy. the best fight was the short rescue scene, I think that was because it was almost done entirely by a stunt double.
Quote from: hacksparrowAt the end of the film, I was reminded of what a friend of mine had said about the Wachowski brothers after being disappointed with Matrix Revolutions. He said that the Wachowskis know how to orchestrate individual action sequences but as for a full cohesive story... not so much. I think that that sentiment can be applied to Zhang Yimou, as far as HOFD and Hero are concerned.
But it certainly was pretty.
Well I agree with hacksparrow as I, too, enjoyed this more than Hero. Not quite sure what all the fuss was about with this movie.. I was gonna say pete's just a snob about this stuff, but GB and Weak were bored by it too. Weird, because I was into it from beginning to end.
Oh and one of the final shots reminded me of McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Haha.. that's all I could think about for a good 3-5 minutes there.
Finally saw this movie tonight on my week long tirade of Oscar buzz films. Gotta say that I loved it. Had no idea that I was walking into a love story and a tragedy.
Good stuff..
Quote from: peteokay. so that sucked.
the first half of the movie was awesome, then came the supposedly spectacular bamboo forest fight with CGI so abundant and so hoaky it made Zatoichi's CG looked like I dunno, Eternal Sunshine of Jurassic Park. and everything went down to shits with it.
I kinda saw it coming, all my friends told me, but I didn't believe them. The first half of the movie was awesome, what the hell were my friends/ critics/ random strangers online talking about? this is beautiful and the fight scenes are cool! this is much more fun than Hero. oh oops look at that hoaky little makeout scene. that's okay hahaha. oh what about that weird cgi arrow--hey blemishes make art right hahaha. I began praying to Zhang Yimou. Hey man, remember me? We met in Boston in May, I was your translator for a wicked short period of time, remember me? It's Pete. Don't be a prick Zhang. C'mon. This is nice, don't get beautiful on me, please? Zhang, hey, what the fuck is this? digital dildo-sized green bamboos?
then the plot begins twisting itself. this is some pretzel-yoga shit. if you think this angry review is corny, watch the movie when it comes out in your trailer park and apologize to me in advance.
so yeah, zhang is pretty much a master (To Live in '94)-turned hack. The world should've long suspected that he's been doing nothing but taking shit, but we were ignorant. we held our breath and pretended it's chocolate fudge, simply because he always sprinkled his shit with big "exotic arthouse" production fucking values. and look, he's made one dud saved by Christopher Doyle and Jet Li, and second dud saved by his reputation (that people will go see house of flying dirk digglers because of all the lame-ass foreign press critics who got assfucked by the digital bamboos and because everyone in the world thought Quentin Tarantino made Hero. meanwhile, great martial arts gems like Ong Bak and Twilight Samurai make their symbolic arthouse circuit stops for a week in some of the bigger cities, and exist primarily in internet chatrooms (here in America that is).
man, fuck this Zhang Yimou guy.
Pete's surprisingly funny rant ("House of the Flying Dirk Digglers"...brilliance!) really sums up my problems with the film. It started out so promising too. I thought it felt kind of like an "arthouse blockbuster", a film that is devoid of a whole lot of story, features cardboard characters, and has a crazy plot-twist(s) that make you rethink everything you've seen...but a couple of great action sequences and some really nice cinematography (instead of a lot of special effects). It was really disappointing to see such beautiful images detatched from any emotion.
In the end it was a really beautiful, yet unfortunately empty film.
okay, this is the third time I got a "surprisingly funny", shouldn't it stop being surprising?
Quote from: peteokay, this is the third time I got a "surprisingly funny", shouldn't it stop being surprising?
It's more that it's
you that's funny, and
that's surprisng.
Quote from: peteokay, this is the third time I got a "surprisingly funny", shouldn't it stop being surprising?
No offense or anything...I just wasn't expecting a review of
The House of Flying Daggers to be funny at all. Your's was. I won't act surprised the next time I read it, if it makes ya feel any better.
Quote from: WalrusQuote from: peteokay, this is the third time I got a "surprisingly funny", shouldn't it stop being surprising?
It's more that it's you that's funny, and that's surprisng.
aww you little pokemon child manchild. you are to young to get into this owning stuff, let the big boys handle it.
Columbia TriStar's House of Flying Daggers is due on 4/19. Look for audio commentary with Ziyi Zhang and Zhang Yimou, a "making of" featurette, a visual effects featurette, storyboard comparisons and a music video (SLP $28.95).
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedigitalbits.com%2Farticles%2Fmiscgfx%2Fcovers4%2Fhouseofflyingdaggersdvd.jpg&hash=0da425ca76d3edf17eca08afba4ca446b7cb807e)
happy times sucked.
helo flagpolespecial; i really like your avatar (:
Yimou has a big bag of tricks, but this was pretty boring and pretty typical. The tragedy, the romance, the action. Blah.
flagpole, I like your avatar but I hate that polaroid inside of it.
Saw this a few days ago and I concur with the criticisms of the film. I just did not care about the story, which was thin to begin with. It was filled with silly stuff but it didn't make me suspend my disbelief enough to accept it. The fight scenes weren't choreographed incredibly well or anything either.
Hey the gold trumpet, are you up for defending this movie¿
no one's has extensively defended it over here and i just saw it's on your top 10, i'm interested on why did you like it
I read through the thread and all the complaints seemed to be about the film failing to have the dramatic impact they expected. I guess I had different expectations. All these films, from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to Hero and now House of Flying Daggers, are in the realm of fantasy for me. I think that allowed for me to be engrossed in the story more than others. I never got a vibe at all during the film it would be really dramatic. And comparing this one to Hero, this has a story I believe more emotionally involving. Hero was a spectacle of action sequences begging for a more coherent and satisfying story. Sure, House of Flying Daggers maybe had one too many 'revelations' with the second one, but it didn't hinder my experience. Films that base themselves off such ploys usually have many more plot twists than in this one.
And for those upset this film ended in such a romantic spetacle, thinking integrity and honesty were lost, I think one should be more offended by the ending of Hero. The purpose of giving in to that emperor, the film's antagonist, to unite all of China for a "greater good" purpose I found to be egregious. Its a fantasy film that ends in a history lesson surely more complicated than just the film's one point. House of Flying Daggers is romantic fluff, but its my favorite film this genre has to offer so far. A lot of films on my top 10 list can best explained on just level of enjoyment. The art circuit (of the ones I saw) seemed lacking last year.
well, to me it's like arthouse directors who make pretty much subpar kungfu movies with plots stolen from pulp novels and older, superior movies, but because they're more savvy to the current "international arthouse cinema" aesthetic (eg. evoking kurosawa), people new to the genre eat them up and give them undeserved paises, to the point where they forgive all things like bad acting, bad dialogues, and just overall cheesiness/ unoriginality.
Quote from: petewell, to me it's like arthouse directors who make pretty much subpar kungfu movies with plots stolen from pulp novels and older, superior movies, but because they're more savvy to the current "international arthouse cinema" aesthetic (eg. evoking kurosawa), people new to the genre eat them up and give them undeserved paises, to the point where they forgive all things like bad acting, bad dialogues, and just overall cheesiness/ unoriginality.
That could be true. I definitely fit the part of not really knowing the genre all too well, but I've seen people who do know the genre quite well also praise this film. I'm just saying I really liked this film and don't consider it an art house film. Its just a foreign film. More, an entertainment piece. I don't think that is going overboard on praising it.
i watched this tonight. i was going to see it, but then i wasnt cause i didnt like hero at all, but then the reviews were so good, so i waited till dvd. i liked it a lot better than Hero. the action scenes were more varied and mostly, i cared about the characters and story more, which made it hugely more compelling. so, it was pretty good and i'm glad i gave it a shot. :yabbse-thumbup: