House of Flying Daggers — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Synopsis

In AD 859, as the Tang dynasty declines, several rebel groups emerged. The largest of them is the House of Flying Daggers in Fengtian, who battle the corrupt government. Its members steal from the rich and give to the poor, gaining the locals' support. Two police officers, Liu and Jin, are ordered to kill the group leader within ten days, an impossible task given no one even knows the leader's identity.

They decide to infiltrate the House of Flying Daggers by interrogating Mei, a blind dancer suspected of being the previous leader's daughter. Jin patronises the brothel where Mei works as a dancer and asks for her. He later pretends to be drunk and sexually assaults Mei, whereupon Liu appears and intervenes, arresting Jin for his actions and Mei for indecency. The madame of the brothel requests Liu to free Mei as she is a skilled dancer in her brothel. Liu agrees that he will do so, but only if Mei does well in the "Echo Game." When the game ends, Mei tries to kill Liu to avenge her father's death. Liu defeats Mei and arrests her to extract information about rebel leaders. Pretending to be a rebel sympathiser, Jin breaks Mei out of the jailhouse, gaining her trust. The two travel to the Flying Dagger headquarters, with Liu trailing behind with reinforcements. Slowly, Mei and Jin fall in love.

To enhance the deception, Liu and his policemen pretend to ambush the pair. The two escape but they are subsequently ambushed by more imperial soldiers, who are unaware that Jin is on their side. At a secret meeting, Liu explains to Jin that the military general has got involved after he reported to him about Mei, and he wants Jin and Mei dead. Jin is shocked and Liu sympathises with him. Jin "quits" his mission of seducing Mei but follows her of his own volition. After Jin saves Mei from the soldiers, Mei initiates intimacy with Jin but Jin refuses, as he is disturbed by the recent events.

A few days later, Jin and Mei are attacked again in a bamboo forest and almost killed, before the House of Flying Daggers saves them and takes them to their headquarters. Mei is revealed to have been faking her blindness and is not the former leader's daughter. Furthermore, she is engaged to Liu, who turns out to be the Flying Daggers' mole within the police. The Flying Daggers planned to engage the military and lure the general and his army to them. The madame of the brothel was part of the Flying Daggers and had assisted in the trap. Liu, who pretended to be captured by the Flying Daggers, is now released and allowed to meet Mei alone. The meeting starts with a blindfolded Liu performing a version of the "Echo Game" with his daggers, with Mei as the master. While reminiscing about their past, Liu attempts to make advances on Mei but is rejected by her, as she has fallen in love with Jin. Liu is heartbroken, disappointed that Mei had fallen in love with Jin after three days while he had spent three years undercover. Liu attempts to rape Mei, but is interrupted by their superior Nia, who gives them new assignments. Mei is ordered to execute Jin but frees him instead. Mei refuses to leave with Jin but chases after him later. Liu ambushes Mei and wounds her fatally. Jin returns, seeking Mei, and finds her wounded. He seeks to avenge Mei by killing Liu. Liu blames Jin for falling in love with Mei, leading to the current circumstances, and they fight.

Evenly matched, Liu and Jin fight, leaving both badly wounded. As Liu attempts to kill Jin, Mei intervenes, threatening Liu with his own dagger, which is lodged in her body. Jin pleads with Mei to save herself. While the standoff continues, Liu pretends to throw his dagger at Jin, intending to die by Mei's dagger while sparing Jin. However, Mei pulls out the dagger lodged in her body and attempts to use it to intercept Liu's dagger in flight. Suffering from heavy blood loss, Mei dies while the two men survive. Liu leaves the scene while Jin cries over Mei's body.

Critical reception

House of Flying Daggers debuted in May at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival to an enthusiastic reception. The film reportedly received a 20-minute standing ovation at its Cannes Film Festival premiere.

At film review aggregation website Metacritic, the film received an average score of 89 out of 100, based on 37 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 87%, based on reviews from 171 critics, and an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's critical consensus states: "The visual splendor of the movie makes up for the weak story". Metacritic also ranked the film at the end of the year as the fifth-best reviewed film of 2004.

Phil Hall of Film Threat wrote: "Quite simply, House of Flying Daggers is a film that sets several new standards for production and entertainment values. It is a wild riot of color, music, passion, action, mystery, pure old-fashioned thrills, and even dancing. With an endless supply of imagination and a kinetic force of nature in its amazing star Zhang Ziyi, House of Flying Daggers cuts all other films to shreds." Desson Thomas of The Washington Post praised the director Zhang Yimou's use of color in the film as "simply the best in the world", and commented that: "the slow-motion trajectory of a small bean, hurled from a police captain's hand, is a spectacular thing. It's a stunning, moving image, like a hummingbird caught in action." While Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times praised the film by stating: "House of Flying Daggers finds the great Chinese director at his most romantic in this thrilling martial arts epic that involves a conflict between love and duty carried out to its fullest expression."

A. O. Scott of The New York Times described the film as: "A gorgeous entertainment, a feast of blood, passion, and silk brocade." The review also stated: "House of Flying Daggers for all its fire and beauty, may leave you a bit cold in the end." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film four out of four stars and states: "Forget about the plot, the characters, the intrigue, which are all splendid in House of Flying Daggers, and focus just on the visuals"; Ebert also stated: "the film is so good to look at and listen to that, as with some operas, the story is almost beside the point, serving primarily to get us from one spectacular scene to another." House of Flying Daggers was placed at number 93 on Slant's best films of the 2000s, and ranked number 77 in Empire's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.

In 2024, Looper ranked it number 33 on its list of the "50 Best PG-13 Movies of All Time," writing: "A film bursting with visual imagination, House of Flying Daggers is akin to a crash course in the qualities that define Zhang's radiant vision as a filmmaker."

House of Flying Daggers

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House of Flying Daggers

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