House of Flying Daggers April 24th, 2010
Originally Written 12/29/04
House of Flying Daggers was pretty good. It reminded me some of Hero in a few ways. Like Hero, the story was interesting but kind of just okay, until the third act, where things fell into place and you could see all the layers to it. That really impressed me, and the ending was very emotionally brutal, but compelling.
The choreography, cinemaphotgraphy and settings were all superb. The fight scenes were impressive too, though the special effects of the weapons flying around were a little more obvious here, if that’s the right term to use. I though the effects were a little more organic in Hero.
The sound was also amped up as well. That made sense since one of the characters was a blind martial-artist, who used sound to pinpoint things. However, that made the fight scenes a little aggitating for me, since I don’t like loud noise.
Overall I liked Hero a bit more, though it’s hard to compare the two films. I did enjoy Flying Daggers, and the points I mentioned against it were small compared to the positives about the movie. I was glad to have gotten a chance to see it in the theaters.