Venue: Hong Kong

The House of Flying Daggers is a rebel organisation against a corrupt goverment. Zhang Ziyi plays a blind member of the organisation well skilled in marital arts. Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro play captains of the local guards who hatch a plan to find the House of the Flying Daggers. The inevitable love triangle follows some twists and turns.

Zhang Ziyi apparently lived with a blind person for 2 months to better understand how to play the part, and I think she studied well. I remember Andy Lau as the cheeky gangster in God of Gamblers. He doesn't have quite such an amusing character in this film, but we certainly get to see his range.

Maybe I was in a cinema full of cynics, or maybe these days we are expecting swifter death scenes. However, the number of times a certain character seemed to die was comical.

The fight sequences were very good, employing special effects to enhance the scenes. I personally enjoyed the obligatory fight in a bamboo forest, where projectile and melee weapons are readily constructed! The style is more reminiscent of Once Upon a Time in China than Crouching Tiger.