Popular reviews

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  Review by Sean Gilman ★★★★ 11

  Wife: Why are you watching House of Flying Daggers again?

  Me: It's been awhile since I've seen it. I've watched a lot of martial arts and Hong Kong movies in the last couple of years and I'm curious how it holds up.

  Wife: How is it?

  Me: Kinda weird. It's so ornate, rococo in costumes and sets and plot and everything. So pretty, but it feels like there's something missing. The plot is so ridiculously convoluted and hard to follow: everyone is lying to everyone else all the time so no one's motivations are ever really clear and even the ostensible conflict of the film, the fight between the rebellious Flying Daggers movement and their Tang Dynasty rulers, is totally…

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  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★★ 3

  Worth viewing strictly for the visuals, sets and costumes alone! But it has so much more going for it than that! Masterfully executed martial arts fight scenes make this an exceptional film! One fight scene that stands out from the rest involved a high flying bamboo ballet that was particularly exciting, the aesthetics were especially pleasing to the eyes!

  I could be mistaken but I'm pretty sure there was some hellacious Bean Fu going on in the film in the opening scene! It's scenes like this that propel this film into the territory of greatness!

  I'm not normally into romance films but when it comes to this one I'm more than happy to make an exception!

  It reportedly received a 20 minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival and having witnessed its gorgeous cinematography and epic fight scenes for myself I can fully understand why!

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★

  To this day carries the reputation of a CROUCHING TIGER coattail rider, but while it never reaches those emotional heights it's so much more traditionally Shaw, despite its formal modernity and technical advances an immaculate reproduction/homage to King Hu and Li Han-Hsiang. The bamboo forest fight is as good as contemporary wuxia gets.

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  Review by Jake Rosenberg ★★½ 9

  I fucking hate it when would be rapists get redeemed, romance unnaturally blossoms between would be rapist & his almost victim, & when said female lead is endlessly objectified for the sake of a love triangle; but the filmmaking is endlessly dazzling & the action sequences are goddamn breathtaking. While I couldn’t connect with the plot/characters, Zhang Yimou knows exactly how to utilize a color palette, with the usage of greens, oranges, & yellows being super striking 🎨

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★

  fascinating stuff going on here about the destructiveness of male aggression and sexuality, and the failure to repress it—doesn't have the emotional power of Hero but i wonder if that's the point

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  Review by Andra 🦋 ★★★ 7

  It is undoubted that the strength of House of Flying Daggers lies in its visual splendour: there are few movies that manage to capture so many shades of colors as Zhang Yimou's, and House of Flying Daggers might be his biggest effort to date in terms of ambition, which is repaid by a movie that presents an artistic vision I thought alien to the live action world. The unapologetically bright and bold colors that construct the picture are the ones you could easily find in an animated movie, but rarely in a live action one. The movie is absolutely stunning in terms of presentation, where red was the dominant color in the director's previous features, it is now green who…

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  Review by ckentelmann ★★★★

  Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau could betray me and slit my throat with their flying daggers, and I swear, the gurgling noises you'd hear as the blood poured out my jugular would be a sound of pure bliss.

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  Review by David James 🍩 ★★★★ 12

  He's acting, she's acting, but they real-deal fall for each other down through these layers of deception. Actions false, feelings genuine. The state is telling a story and the Flying Daggers are telling their own, both aiming to send bodies into the meat grinder in their struggle for power. Feelings false, actions genuine. Love versus power is the core conflict here, and Zhang Yimou spins these familiar ingredients into hallucinatory magic with dreamy wuxia action and musical editing, affecting a tragic martial arts opera with only one song, but what a song it is. Hearts bleed and the earth turns and seasons change during a final clash of the swords, bamboo shattering all around, snow blanketing the fields of fathomless loss like a sacred shroud. What a romantic gut punch to be left so vulnerable after such a triumphant display of balletic bloodshed.

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  Review by Justin Decloux ★★★★ 1

  There sure are a lot of flying daggers.

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  Review by shookone ★★½ 1

  aesthetics, pathos, kitsch and glossy optics vs the people

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  Review by Fabian ★★★★ 7

  "I sacrificed three years for you. How could you love him after only three days?"

  A technical marvel of astounding visual perfection. Zhang Yimou's wuxia romance is elegantly crafted and seductively beautiful; one of those films you can pause at any moment and find an image of incomparable beauty. Simultaneously a romantic adventure and a tragic love triangle, House of Flying Daggers takes its roots from past martial arts films and transports their core ingredients into a 9th-century period drama that paints an engaging symbiosis of action and romance.

  If you have seen even a single Zhang Yimou film before, this will come as no surprise, but House of Flying Daggers looks like a playground of someone who discovered colors…

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  Review by Thomas ★★★

  Zhang Yimou´s “House of Flying Daggers” features all the Wuxia trademarks I like: Masterfully choreographed and gravity-defying fights, a lot of pathos, and dazzling, spellbinding visuals. The sets, costumes, cinematography, framing, and striking colors are all marvelous to look at and especially the bamboo forest scene is an aesthetical highlight. Still, it´s not as breathtakingly gorgeous as Yimou´s previous movie “Hero”, and the plot is weaker and more basic, too, as well as needlessly convoluted. The rebellion subplot is interesting, but its conclusion is left ambiguous and it´s largely overshadowed by the central love triangle. “House of Flying Daggers” is more romance than martial arts film, but I wasn´t very invested in the love story. It also doesn´t help that both male leads are rapey without facing consequences for it. All in all, the film is beautiful to look at, but it feels empty to me. Still, wuxia fans should have a good time with it.