The House of Flying Daggers

So you've seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and you loved it. You hear about a new movie by CTHD's director Yimou Zhang, and are expected a movie filled with martial arts and bad-assedness. What you don't expect is a movie that is visually stunning in addition to its martial arts component.

Martial Arts and Romance

House of Flying Daggers has its share of repressed love and tangled romance in a web that is more intricate than the storyline of CTHD, and throws in amazing scenery to top it all off.

The martial arts component is not neglected, but it is definitely secondary to the storyline. This is exemplified in one scene where Xiao Mei (Ziyi Zhang) is being rescued by Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), and rather than focusing on his insanely honed martial arts skills, we see a closeup of Mei's face on the audio backdrop of some soldiers biting the dust.

Rich and Striking

There are a number of "WOW" moments in the movie that dropped our jaws, and both Ginny and I agreed that this is a well-rounded martial arts romance with amazing artistic direction. The scenery is amazing, the story well-played out (with some surprising twists), and this movie is definitely not a run-of-the-mill martial arts flick.

House of Flying Daggers is an exceptional piece of work that will engage you throughout the movie, and is something that you should see on a big screen (blu-ray is a huge plus for this one).

Rating: 9.0/10.0