The House of Flying Daggers

Think Yimou Zhang's own Hero by way of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and you're someway towards the reality of the gorgeously rendered The House of Flying Daggers. Set in 859 and in the closing stages of the Tang dynasty, the film follows Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a blind dancing girl who doubles as an assassin for a secret society - the Flying Daggers - intent on destabilising the corrupt government of the day. Two police officers - Jin (Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Leo (Andy Lau) - are determined to discover where her co-conspirators are hidden and pursue Mei, using very different methods.

It may be a melodrama disguised as a martial arts flick, but it's unlikely you'll see a more beautiful and radiant-looking film than The House of Flying Daggers this year. Awash in vivid colours and immaculate set designs, it's a visual feast, with Yimou Zhang investing himself completely in the picture's staggeringly executed action sequences. As jaw dropping as some of these scenes are, however, the director fails to provide the same attention to detail when it comes to the emotional depth of his narrative. Maintaining too great a distance from its characters, the story unfolds at an unhurried pace, never really asking the audience to lose themselves in the protagonists' dilemmas. And as artfully choreographed as it is, the climatic face-off between our trinity of fighters goes on for what seems like several weeks. At least.