House Poetic Dagger to the Heart

It is clear by now Chinese director Zhang Yimou is a master. How can I tell? Well, like Hitchcock, Wilder, Hawks, Kurosawa, et al, he has an innate ability to make whatever genre he’s working in distinctly his own. Goodness knows, like all of the aforementioned, he’s certainly worked in them all. Comedy, drama, historical epic, tragic romance, they’re all be found on Yimou’s resume.

Action was added to that list with the stateside release of his 2003 film Hero earlier this year, a pageantry of sight, color and sound that’s cemented itself as one of my favorites. Now, Yimou follows that triumph up with an even more ambitious tale, the martial arts love story House of Flying Daggers and, in many ways, it’s even more of a masterpiece.

It is 859AD and the Tang Dynasty is in decline. Corruption and incompetence run rampant throughout the land, rebel armies rising everywhere to try and right the wrongs committed in the government’s name. The largest and most feared of these armies is The House of Flying Daggers. Based close to the Imperial Capital, it has become the mission of all local deputies to find and kill the House’s leadership.

Two such captains, Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), think they have just the plan to bring the Flying Daggers to their knees. They suspect recently arrested showgirl Mei (Zhang Ziyi) is actually the blind daughter of an executed rebel leader come to wreak her vengeance. Sending Jin undercover as her savior, the pair hopes she’ll lead them to the House’s forest lair, allowing them to kill the new leader and bring glory and honor to their names.

Things work just as planned save for one small problem: Jin finds himself falling in love with the headstrong girl. Worse, a local general has learned of their plan and has decided to litter the path with soldiers unknowing of Jin’s strategy or identity. To make the plan work, he’ll have to help Mei kill them, their blood thus allowing him to earn her trust and bring the swordsman into the Flying Daggers’ hideaway. This ways heavy on the undercover agent, even more so when he can’t figure out if he’s killing these men for the greater good or to Mei safe and win her heart.

What he doesn’t know, however, is that Mei hides her own secrets, secrets she’s prepared to kill to keep hidden. And even when she, too, starts to feel emotional towards her enigmatic savior, the young knife-maiden finds protecting her desires more difficult than keeping the faith with those she’s swore to protect.

In many ways, this is as traditional a Chinese epic as you can get. Star-crossed lovers, hidden agendas and identities, warring clans, jilted lovers, stupendous sword fights, blistering kung fu; it’s all here and then some. Yimou shows a gift for the genre, mixing bits and pieces of traditional Asian plot mechanics with his own subtle kinetic twists. If anything, the story constructed here by Yimou and fellow writers Wang Bin and Li Feng is even more intricately layered and devised than the one for Hero, the plot folding back in on itself time and time again revealing a majestic puzzle box full of heartache, tragedy and love.

Always an astonishing visualist, Yimou’s work here is every bit as impressive as anything he’s ever done. The shifting colors and landscapes flow in and out of one another like a dreamy netherworld as if put together by the world’s most talented watercolor artist, while the tiniest woodland sounds sparkle and hum with the majesty of a symphonic orchestra. The costumes change with the scenery, each following the landscape helping to bring to life all the intensely conflicted emotions bubbling just beneath the surface. Everything works in glorious symmetry, Yimou the talented ringmaster pulling all the strings just so to make it all fit.

As good as the action is, and it is beyond spectacular, the movie wouldn’t be anything without the talented trio at the core. Lau has made a career in Hong Kong playing the jilted and/or conflicted lover, and he’s every bit as potent here as he’s ever been. His final moments; shivering in a snowstorm, blood trickling down his cheek; are heartrending and the actor sells them effortlessly. Kaneshiro is even better. Not only is he maybe the single sexiest Asian man I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching on screen (sorry Chow Yun-fat, you’ve been replaced), he’s got the tortured charisma of a young Clint Eastwood. Seeing him slowly, irrevocably fall madly in love with Mei took my breath away, his final embrace of her one for the time capsule.

But none of them compare to Ziyi. The star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Road Home is beyond good. After that first flick, we all new she could wield a sword with the best of them, the real question was always going to be just what kind of actress the young lady would ultimately morph into. Now it can be said with certainty that Ziyi is by far one of the most talented performers of her generation, able to convey a variety of conflicting emotions with the filmy batting of an eye lash. She commands House of Flying Daggers, rules it with her iron gaze and wounded heart; the camera eating her alive as if she was the juiciest apple ever to hit the fruit stand. This is a raw, viscerally alive performance and the movie sings because of it, Yimou’s greatest triumph casting her in such a pivotal role.

Not everything works quite so well. I gave a lot of leeway to Hero because I thought it worked like multi-layered medieval Oriental mythology, certain lapses in continuity, moments of convenience forgiven because they worked so seamlessly within that movie’s landscape. That’s harder to do here. At its core, Yimou’s film is an historical epic about one of China’s most pivotal moments and, as such, time, place and setting are extremely important. Yet, towards the end, none of this seems to matter anymore to the director, changes in season and landscape as swift and sudden as the striking of a newly sharpened blade. Better, an entire army disappears into the bamboo wilderness with no explanation whatsoever. Did they complete their mission? Were they slaughtered by the Flying Daggers? Does it really matter if we know? Yimou obviously doesn’t think it does, and yet, I still can’t shake the questions their appearance raised and, even sometime later, it vexes me still.

No matter, this is still one of the most potently arresting tales of love and woe I’ve seen this year. The director more than proves able to rise to all challenges any particular genre might provide, refusing to let such hazards stand in the way of telling an inherently compelling tale. With sound foundations; story, script, acting, music, camera; Yimou knows what it takes to make a great motion picture and, like the best of his contemporaries, can strike like a dagger to the heart whenever the moment calls for it.

Film Rating: êêê1/2  (out of 4)