House of Flying Daggers (2005)

Phenomenal Story, Beautifully Told

Absolutely beautiful cinematography, as most know but the truly great thing about this movie is the way the characters develop. The emotional journeys of the three main characters are extremely compelling and in the end, they are each true to the character they have developed throughout. There is no fairy-tale ending and questions remain, which is one of its great strengths. Definitely worth owning and watching again and again.

One negative comment, though: there are several scenes where a rape or sex is initiated (but interrupted) and it feels contrived because they are all nearly identical and about half seem unnecessary to the plot. December 23, 2008

Exquisite cinematic beauty, outstanding directing!!!

Prepare to be overwhelmed with the stunning cinematography of this film. The plot is well developed, the acting is flawless, and the actors are definitely easy on the eyes! This would have been a 5 star movie had the ending been a little less predictable. Once you know who everyone REALLY is, you know exactly which character is going to be killed off. But even knowing that, you will still be holding your breath, right to the teary-eyed end, hoping that you are wrong this time... November 28, 2008

A Beautiful Film

House of Flying Daggers is one of the most visually stunning films I've ever watched. The color, the fight choreography, the tragic love story -- I love this from beginning to end! I've watched it several times, and just the visual impact alone has never ceased to amaze me. I highly recommend, especially for fans of this genre. November 11, 2008

House of Flying Daggers

This movie is a wonderful experience to watch. It's sublime, passionate and has many moments that inspire the heart to sing. I love the Chinese culture and found this movie like stepping into a cool pond of water - it awakened all my senses.

I highly recommend it. October 4, 2008

The film is enjoyable, but the Blu-Ray transfer is worthless

This was one of the Blu-Ray discs that I bought at the same time I bought my player, as I was guessing that the vibrant colors of this film would look great in HD. Unfortunately, there is so much film grain and visual noise that I had to drastically reduce the backlight and the color saturation on my LCD in order to make it less distracting. But this eliminated the primary artistic virtue of the film: its colorful palette. If this had been what Blu-Ray had to offer, I would have returned the player immediately, as I had seen better picture quality from upscaled DVDs and from HD downloads in 720p. Thankfully, I was guided towards "I, Robot" and "Ratatouille" and saw what Blu-Ray really has to offer, and it is worth the price of admission. But the shoddy presentation of "House of Flying Daggers" nearly soured me on the whole experience before I really got started.

I rather enjoyed this film on standard-definition cable TV when I first saw it. The colors are marvelous, the fight scenes are fluid, and the plot is simple but effective. The main character, Wind, is kind of a jerk at first, but he grows on you a little by the end. I would describe the acting as competent, even a bit above-average for what you'd expect. For a foreign language film, we English-speaking viewers need decent acting through facial expressions and body language, and there's enough here to adequately serve the story.

I don't know what equipment was used to shoot this film, but I hope that a great transfer could be done one day when Blu-Ray has settled into its place as the dominant disc format. This is the type of film that has great potential as an HD viewing experience, but it hasn't come close to realizing that quite yet. If you have and enjoy the DVD of this movie, I would recommend against buying the Blu-Ray at this time. August 24, 2008

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