House Of Flying Daggers, veteran Chinese master Zhang Yimou's followup to Hero, is not strictly a sequel but it is a glorious companion piece.
Like Hero, Daggers plays in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles. Set in different eras and physical landscapes, each with unique characters and a remarkably different socio-political message embedded in the slim yet elegant stories, the two films can be watched back-to-back to great effect. Hero was recently released on DVD so the double screening is viable, and the order of viewing is irrelevant.
Both films are stunning visual triumphs, both employ martial arts in a serious, mythic fashion, both co-star the ethereal Zhang Ziyi (although she has a much more significant role in Daggers), and both invoke Chinese legend as a means to tell grand stories about the human condition.
All this with thrilling martial arts sequences that can make the hair on the back of your neck bristle and vibrate with anticipation. As Ang Lee did in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Zhang uses the wu xia style of martial arts storytelling in which heroes and villains are invested with superhuman powers, some more imagined than real. These stories operate in a kind of twilight zone beyond the mortal world.
The fights are balletic. Hero had Li's breathtaking duel with Donnie Yen among its many astonishing action sequences; House Of Flying Daggers boasts a series of similarly eye-popping battles, particularly an early one set up both as a game and as an agility test in a brothel, plus a late one that takes place in a dazzling green bamboo forest.
The colour scheme and lithe movement of Daggers is even more fluid than in Hero, in part due to the more verdant environments. Zhang shot Daggers in a Beijing studio and on location in the Ukraine and in Sichun Province in China.
There is also a heightened sensuality in Daggers. Ziyi (who also played the feisty princess in Crouching Tiger) is a real actress capable of emotional depth and dynamism. She also happens to be staggeringly beautiful with porcelain features, liquid eyes and a body that makes men yearn -- as they so eagerly and sometimes tragically do in House Of Flying Daggers. This reminds us that actors do not have to strip naked to be sexually charged on screen.
Is the new film better, worse, than Hero? Not relevant! I packaged them together for my forthcoming Best Ten list of 2004. They are equals, perfect companion pieces.
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HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
1 hour, 59 minutes
Starring: Zhang Ziyi, Takeshi
Kaneshiro
Director: Zhang Yimou
Rated: 14A
BOTTOM LINE
While it leaves some viewers feeling cold, I found this serious Chinese martial arts film to be ravishingly beautiful and moving. There is fire in the ice.
