House Of Flying Daggers

Phew. At long last. Following several light years of delays, Zhang Yimou’s heady follow up to Hero finally sails in over the bamboo groves and onto our screens with Shaw inflected razzmatazz and a golden harvest from, well, Golden Harvest. So, without further ado, here are the reasons why you’ll all be going to House Of Flying Daggers.

Firstly, the swooning divas-in-love plot sees a romantic Mexican stand-off between the planet’s most beautiful people. Takeshi Kaneshiro plays Jin, a government agent gone undercover in the hope that blind brothel dancer and sword-swishing goddess, Mei (Zhang Ziyi), can lead him to the eponymous band of rogue warriors. Captain Leo (Lau) follows closely behind, but it’s early days and there are several quadruple twists in the offing.

Happily, this busy scenario leaves little room for the dodgy politics that informed Hero, and instead Flying Daggers trades in lightning bolt action, martial arts balladry, quick-step homage (Girl With The Thunderbolt Kick? Check) and amorous splendour. Hurrah.

Visually speaking, of course, the film marks a step into the Orgazmatron with such unimaginably decadent tableaux, it makes Hero look like a silver-tinted Fincher shadow on the wall. No colour or ornamentation is spared and after drooling over lavish brothels and stately green forests, one can look forward to an operatic climax and the best damn snow-fight since Andrei Nevsky hit the ice.

It’s all too beautiful, but you won’t hear any argument from me.
Running Time 119mins. Cert 15a. Opens March 11th.