September 13, 2004

Audiences may go into House of Flying Daggers expecting a variation on Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or even Kill Bill. But while elements that contributed to these films also contribute to Daggers, there is a real distinction of style here. Zhang Yimou has, on the timeline of film history, gone backwards, not forward, this time out and made one of the greatest Shaw Bros. grind house films of all time. And that, for me, is not in any way a restraint of affection.

Oddly, the film puts Quentin Tarantino's recent exploitation of exploitation films into perspective. You realize as you are watching House of Flying Daggers that while Zhang goes back to the Shaw Bros. films and truly does upgrade and push a small step beyond, in production and mindset, Tarantino took the pieces of Shaw Bros. cinema (crassly or not, depending on your point of view) and shoved them into his vision of a female heroine. This revelation, late in coming for me, is both a feather in the Tarantino cap and a dagger to his throat. The western cultural rape of the east could not be better embodied. Yet, this same man was part of the successful, albeit two years tardy, Miramax launch of Hero. I guess each of us will make the judgment of the degree of sin or salvation.

But I digress…

The partnership Zhang Yimou and his cinematographers - like another partnership on display here at Toronto, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor - cannot be underestimated. After years of working with Yong Hou, Zhang Yimou got together with Chris Doyle for Hero. They were a magical combination. This time out, he worked with Xiaoding Zhao, for whom I can find no other credits… which is probably more indicative of a lack of credits from asian movies on the web than his actual resume'. That said, when one watches movies by new directors and cinematographers of unknown quantity, you have to guess whether the flaws or the details you see were distinct choices or failures of skill. With Zhang Yimou and whomever he is working, you know that you are getting pretty much exactly what they want to deliver.

When House of Flying Daggers opens with a courtesan sequence that is shot with lots of odd singles, overhead light and jump cuts, pans and even zooms that are right out of Memoirs of a Chinese Courtesan, those intentions become immediately clear. They are paying quite specific homage to the style of those late 60s/early 70s films. And it is perhaps the best such cinematic homage since Steven Spielberg "did" the musical with the "Anything Goes" sequence in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. In Daggers, even the dubbing has a slight echo though, like the whole effort, it is not so overplayed that it strikes you as a bad dub. The sound is just a little hollow…just a little overloud here and there.

Quickly, you get what the premise is. And again, if you know old Shaw Bros., you know that those films were ahead of their time about the notion of female power. A courtesan with a grudge was always more than a little dangerous. Add to this film the notion that the courtesan in question is blind and you have a mini-encyclopedia of Shaw Bros. "chick flicks."

Zhang Ziyi is an epic beauty and Doyle and Zhang Yimou know how one must linger and love a face as subtle as hers in order to start melting the celluloid on which the film is being projected. But the depth that Zhang Yimou will bring to it is that she has the power of her beauty, the power of her fighting skills and the power of true love. The old school take would surely be that she would use the simple lust that her beauty enraged in an unkind man to seek revenge. It gets far more complex here and she, and the men in her world, have to deal with all of her layers.

The men are, at first, archetypes of Shaw Bros. cinema. But as the film progresses, they too grow in complexity.

I really don't want to get into a discussion of the story that goes beyond the first sequence of The Courtesan, The Master & The Challenge. Everything else involves a twist or a turn that you should experience for yourself.

But if you want to do it right, go to the video store and rent any of the classic Shaw Bros. movies that they might have available... particularly one featuring female characters. You may have to go to a specialty store. But it will be worth the trip for the context alone.

It's a beautiful movie. It is what it is. So despite a greater romantic story, it is still not typical weepie. If you don't like Asian action, you won't like this. But if you want to see the ultimate example of one form of cinema, this is your movie.

E ME: Will you go see a second Zhang Yimou movie in a year after seeing Hero? Or will you skip Hero and wait for House of Flying Daggers? Or none of the above?