House of Flying Daggers: A-

Comparisons to the 2002 martials arts spectacular "Hero" must be drawn. Not only do "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" share the same director, they both star Zhang Zi Yi.

I'll start with the most obvious comparison: the fight scenes. In "Hero" there were enough to make your eyes weep from sheer beauty, like when the assasin Flying Snow killed her lover's maiden with tornadoes of yellow leaves, or when Nameless and Long Sky fight over puddles of frozen water while a blind man accompanies them on a steel-string harpsichord. The problem with these scenes? They were filled with feats of super-human ability that we could barely comprehend. The fighting in "House of Flying Daggers" is less super-powered and more brutal; although there is one moment in particular that is just WOW: A blind exotic dancer has to play a game for her life against an imperial solider where she follows the patterns one nut makes on 100 drums by hitting the drums with the ends of her long pink sleeves, kind've like ancient Simon Says, as she twirls back and forth catching the patterns of about 1,000 nuts she steathily moves forward and wraps her sleeve around the solider's sword and attacks......with her sleeve and his sword! It is truly magnificent.

Now the next comparison: the story. "Hero"'s story was a badly layed puzzle but ultimately very satisfying where as "House of Flying Daggers" had an amazing story - involving a revolutionary cult and a love triangle (only in China) - until the last scene, approximately 20 mins of the movie. This last scene is bad, real bad, and perhaps the only flaw in a movie that could be called a brutal poetry of blood, battles, and silk brocade.