House of Flying Daggers

Film Threat Phil Hall

Quite simply, House of Flying Daggers is a film that sets several new standards for production and entertainment values. It is a wild riot of color, music, passion, action, mystery, pure old-fashioned thrills and even dancing.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

It's great, fantastical fun.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

House of Flying Daggers finds the great Chinese director at his most romantic in this thrilling martial arts epic that involves a conflict between love and duty carried out to its fullest expression.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

An astonishing combination of spectacle, suspense, martial-arts flash, sublime silliness, anti-gravity action and passionate intensity -- before and after everything else, it's a grand love story.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The most gorgeous movie of the year. This smashing martial-arts romance from Chinese director Zhang Yimou is stunning in other ways, too, like the eroticism that ripples just beneath the surface.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The movie equivalent of a 12-course feast crammed with unforgettable images and mind-boggling stunts.

Time Richard Corliss

The cast list is like a convocation of the Three Chinas: Taiwan's Kaneshiro, Hong Kong's Lau and the mainland's Zhang Ziyi. All are terrific, but the lady shines brightest.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's as thrilling and lushly beautiful a movie as has been released all year, matched only by Zhang's epic "Hero." And I think this film is the more powerful.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Chinese director Zhang Yimou understands perfectly that the small can be epic and awe-inspiring. And, by the way, he knows how to get big, too.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Zhang weaves in both thrilling martial-arts set pieces and stunning studies of period silk tapestry and costume.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Forget about the plot, the characters, the intrigue, which are all splendid in House of Flying Daggers, and focus just on the visuals.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The sheer joy of letting go as a tale overwhelms your senses and drives the known world away -- that's the story.

Slate David Edelstein

This is the most intoxicatingly beautiful martial arts picture I've ever seen.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

It's action opera, sword-and-sorcery song-and-dance, and it's a heart-pumping, jaw-dropping thrill. OK, so I kind of like the thing.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

Its exquisiteness can overwhelm in a single sitting.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

By turns breathtaking and heartbreaking.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

He's (Yimou) like a painter combining bloody reds, sunshine yellows and pale blues in the harmony of a masterpiece.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

An outrageously gorgeous spectacle of balletic aggression. At the same time, it offers something we rarely encounter in a whirling martial-arts extravaganza: a romantic passion that's woven into the very fabric of the action.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

A glorious new addition to martial-arts cinema.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

I don't know if the many plot swerves withstand a second viewing, but I suspect the meat of the matter – the swooning visuals, the expert choreography, the teasing love story – does.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The result is one of the most visually astonishing martial-arts fantasies ever made.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Forget "Hero" -- that cult hit was just Zhang Yimou's warm-up for this martial-arts fireball that throws in a lyrical love story, head-spinning fights and dazzling surprises.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The second action melodrama released in the United States this year by director Zhang Yimou, and if I prefer the previous one, "Hero," it's partly a matter of degrees.

Variety Derek Elley

The tangled tale of love and disguise is awesome in its action sequences but doesn't touch the heart to the same degree.

LA Weekly David Chute

The most seamless piece of sensuous expressionism Zhang has created since "Ju Dou" (1990).

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

You feel wiped and blinded by such ravishment, yet a voice within you asks: Come on, guys, can't you just stop for the holidays?

The New York Times Dana Stevens

A gorgeous entertainment, a feast of blood, passion and silk brocade. But though the picture is full of swirling, ecstatic motion, it is not especially moving.

Empire Dan Jolin

This is how action movies should be made.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Actors Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro are the kind of startlingly good-looking, glamorous stars that evoke classic Hollywood adventure films.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

It's a perfect example of how far production design and editing WON'T take you when the story's not there.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

If you think "Hero" is a sumptuous film, prepare to be blown away by House of Flying Daggers.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

All told, while the goods that Daggers offers are choice, the movie ultimately demonstrates that too much can be, well, more than enough.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Choreographed to the last beat, the action scenes have a depth that the film's thinly sketched characters never quite develop.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

If only this epic had enough substantial melodramatic hooks to hang this woman's beauty on; emotional traction is most often buried under acres of carefully coordinated vistas and CGI-hued flora.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

This film pivots on a romantic triangle as overwrought as it is stylized. It's like a Douglas Sirk melodrama ratcheted up with fists of fury and wrapped in apparently endless yards of shimmering silk.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's exuberant, exhilarating, poetic and -- intentionally and not -- rather silly.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Beautiful but hollow.