This interesting film which has twists, turns and graceful beauty mixing martial arts and modern technology, "House of the Flying Daggers," is yet another success from the country of China. The martial art fight scenes introduced--to me anyway--by "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," are never boring when done correctly.

This movie does a nice job of mixing story and action and acting, especially by one of my crushes, Ziyi Zhang. I highly recommend this movie IF--and that is a big IF--you like movies such as the aforementioned "Crouching Tiger,.." and the more recent "Hero." If you did not like those movies, then you probably won't like this one either.

"House…" is a movie set in about the same time frame as the movies "Hero" and "Crouching Tiger…," and revolves around a group of resistance fighters who are quarreling with the King and his government. Two of the King's soldiers, Jin and Leo, have had success in killing the leader of the revolution group, named House of the Flying Daggers, and are trying to find a way to infiltrate the group and find out its secrets.

They come across a blind girl in a--for lack of a better word--whorehouse, who is rumored to be apart of the group. So, Jin goes in undercover as a customer and asks for the newest member of the house. Her name is Mei, and she is a fabulous dancer who has been blind since birth. Eventually, Mei is captured but refuses to talk. So, the plan is for Jin to break her out, help gain her trust and find the Daggers camp, while Leo follows behind. However, Jin not only gains her trust but falls in love with Mei. She falls for him, and it creates a difficult situation, obviously.

The star of the movie, in my eyes, is Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). She does an absolutely marvelous job as a blind woman. In fact, I would recommend to anyone who needs to play a blind person, either do what she did, being she stayed with a blind girl for two weeks and watched her every move, or watch this movie. She is very convincing. I may be wrong, but the last movie I saw with an actor play a blind person, "Elektra," was so horrible, anything compared to it would be great. However, I will give the benefit of the doubt to Ziyi.

The writing, while not original, did keep the movie's plot twists hidden fairly well. Both writers, Feng Li and Bin Wang, also collaborated on the 2003 movie "Hero," which starred Jet Li. My only concern is they definitely have a certain style which shows in both movies. In that, I wondered at the end of the movie if there were one too many twists.

Director Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad) did a great job of keeping the story together and shooting this movie in some beautiful locations. He did a masterful job of helping Ziyi portray the blind woman. If she made any mistakes, you can't see it in the movie. Zhang has worked with Ziyi as well as Li and Wang in the movie "Hero."

I do have one major complaint about the movie. Both of the love interests in it, Jin and Leo, played well by Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau, had scenes in which they, separately, attempt to rape Mei. While each scene is believable in terms of offering a sick reason for the attempt, I don't find it necessary, and it was quite unnerving, especially the second attempt.

I also don't like how Mei's character seems to ignore these events the next time she "sees"--remember, she's blind--them both. So, either this act was a common occurrence in China during this time and women had to accept it, which is sad, or the character has a major writing flaw.

I do like this movie and thought it was quite good, despite the flaw. It is a showcase for Ziyi Zhang as an actress, and I hope she continues to do more and more in China, as well as here in the states. I recommend this movie, but with my above IF stipulation at the beginning of the review. If there is such a thing as a new "Chinese" movie, then this is very Chinese.

Brian - the Naked Gun