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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (2004)

Zhang Yimou’s follow up to HERO, his immensely satisfying martial arts epic of feudal China, hasn’t the swaggering, doubling-back-on-itself narrative that kept the earlier film in such artful balance. Instead, DAGGERS ups the quotient of jaw-dropping, wire enhanced flying fights, CGI-aided ancient weaponry and extended balletic sword fights, all on the slender back of a love triangle. This means that the stupendous (and strikingly beautiful) effects & backgrounds loom all out of proportion to the political rivalries which never bother to sort themselves out. The spirits of Vincent Minnelli & Busby Berkeley seem to have invaded the genre with good & bad results. With luck, Yimou will stop trying to top himself.

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