Starring: Ziyi Zhang, Takeshi Kaneshiro
Director: Yimou Zhang (who made Hero with Jet Li - planning to watch this next)
Watched this one yesterday. It has the same aura as that of Crouching tiger..., but this is no pouncing tiger for sure. The Cinematography is the best thing about this movie. The dance(?) and fight choregraphy are good too.
James Rochi of Netflix in his critique, has this to say,
House of Flying Daggers has a feel and style that are slightly more specific. Chinese storytelling includes a genre style called wu xia that mixes soap opera emotions with martial arts action. (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the wu xia story most familiar to mainstream American audiences.) Think of any wu xia film as "Desperate Housewives" with swords, and you'll get the general idea.
The fight in the bamboo forest must have irked at least a few conservationists :-) But it was spectacular. The rich greens in those visuals is very appealing. People used to Indian movies would like this somewhat. What really got me was the richness of the frames.
(Warning: spoiler)
There were times when I was reminded of a tamil or hindi movie. Mei falls in love with Jin, Leo too loves her, forming a not so cozy triangle. Leo knifes her in a fit of jealousy, Jin tries to kill him and the two fight a fantastic (visually speaking) battle, then Mei gets up :-) Yes, she does, albeit with tremendous trouble. She uses the dagger stuck in her heart to save Jin, which causes the blood to flow and she collapses. Jin lifts her head on to his lap and we all think that she is dead (finally), but her eyes flutter open, follows a bittersweet moment and she dies. For sure, this time. Jin breaks into a song. A sad one, but a song nevertheless.
Corny, eh? :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment