You know you're in trouble when your period romantic martial arts (wuxia) film receives at first stifled, then out loud giggles from the audience during the most unabashedly “romantic” scene of your film. I feel sorry for director/co-writer Zhang Yimou, whose (much) earlier films I've enjoyed, and who has clearly poured his utmost in heart and energy into his latest, House of Flying Daggers. Perhaps he should have restrained himself, a bit. The film is by no means a turkey or a bomb, but its second half is an increasingly rapid journey down the vortex of sentimentality, mawkishness and downright bad taste. Opera “diva” Kathleen Battle emoting risibly in the closing credits' song, with lines like, “Time has passed, so much has changed; I need to tell you I will love you, I will love you like a butterfly” sealed the deal for me: this was a cheese-fest, and I had no stomach for it.

This is one of those films, like Yimou's previous and similar outing, Hero (2003) that by state reviewing law must be compared to Ang Lee's much-celebrated foray into art house, wire kung-fu wuxia, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). All three feature eye candy scenery, eye candy actors (Zhang Ziyi stars in each), and balletic swordplay done to the beat of pan-Asian drumming with lyrical melodies. All three are basically thinking man's kung fu flics and were released in art house cinemas (until the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film launched Crouching Tiger into the multiplexes of America, forcing millions to read subtitles for the first time.)

You could say Zhang's two films are aiming to capitalize on the enormous success of Crouching Tiger. You'd probably be right, or at least partly right. Certainly the studios and distributors who have picked them up are hoping to cash in on Ang Lee's model. Flying Daggers, however gorgeous to watch, lacks the basic elements of a good story and an overall fine cast that distinguished Crouching Tiger. On the contrary, the complex story is hollow, the emotions of the audience crassly manipulated, and the cast an uneven one with the hammy Takeshi Kaneshiro, solid Andy Lau, and the implacably beautiful (and obligatory) Zhang Ziyi who speaks in a monotone but has mastered more expressions here than in her previous wuxia roles.

The plot would be impossible to summarize without very quickly stumbling into a nest of spoilers. The basic set-up: it is the year 859 A.D. and the corrupt Chinese government is spoiling from the inside. An underground army of martial arts experts, the House of Flying Daggers, we are told in the opening credits, “steal from the rich and give to the poor” though we never see them performing such Robin Hood-worthy deeds. They are at war with the official army, one of whose captains (Lau) sends out a soldier named Jin (Kaneshiro) to determine whether a blind courtesan, Mei (Ziyi) is really an undercover member of the Flying Daggers. Jin and Mei seem to be falling in love against their better instincts, and the story aims to suspend anything conclusive on that matter for as long as possible. A love triangle complicates everything and in the writers' and Zhang's hands, accounts for much unintended humor and embarrassment on the part of the audience. (I should speak for myself, though I certainly had company in the theater: it gave me the giggles.)

The best I could say for House of Flying Daggers is that it executes some wonderful set pieces, a few of them truly awe-inspiring as visual spectacles. A dance sequence performed by Mei that is no doubt anachronistic (as, by the way, is the piano that crops up in the score), along with a drum-thwacking dance she does with her long sleeves, are very striking. Numerous outdoor fights are captivating, particularly one that scurries up and down a bamboo forest (yet another variation on this popular theme). The scenery is itself a ravishing tableau of verdant pastures, wild forests and sprawling autumn landscapes, as much eye candy as anything or anyone (again, true to form for all three wuxia films discussed herein).

Ultimately, the visual perfection feels like a more artistic but no less chilly CGI touch-up than Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. In each case, the actors seem trapped in a sterile environment of studiously polished surfaces. The film treads the fine line between art and mass appeal entertainment, pretty much splitting the difference and failing epically at both. I would love to speak of the melodrama that subsumes the latter half of the film like an avalanche, but this would entail divulging too much plot, and I respect Zhang Yimou too much to unleash my own verbal daggers on his work.

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The Kids: If Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was suitable for your child, so is this. Plenty of violent fight sequences, only one of them featuring ample blood. The sex is suggestive, never explicit, and we see much of Zhang Ziyi's alabaster shoulders. Still, I can hardly imagine a 13 year old, much less an adult, wanting to sit through the film, except to take in its ravishing, though forgettable, parade of beauty.

Recommended: No