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House of Flying Daggers (Shi mian mai fu) (2004)

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Top Critics

Average Rating: 7.8/10
Reviews Counted: 164
Fresh: 144 | Rotten: 20

The visual splendor of the movie makes up for the weak story.

Average Rating: 8.1/10
Critic Reviews: 39
Fresh: 37 | Rotten: 2

The visual splendor of the movie makes up for the weak story.

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Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 196,249

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Movie Info

Chinese director Zhang Yimou fuses a martial arts action-drama with a tragic romance in this elegant period piece. In the year 859 A.D., as the Tang dynasty is beset by rebellion, Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) are a pair of lawmen who have been given the task of ferreting out the leaders of a revolutionary faction known as the Flying Daggers. Working on a tip that members of the group are working out of a brothel called the Peony Pavilion, Jin arrives there in disguise and is

PG-13, 1 hr. 59 min.

Drama, Action & Adventure, Art House & International

Directed By: Yimou Zhang , Andy Lau

Written By: Yimou Zhang

In Theaters: Dec 3, 2004 Wide

On DVD: Mar 29, 2005

Box Office:$10.9M

Sony Pictures Classics

House of Flying Daggers (Shi mian mai fu) Trailer & Photos

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Critic Reviews for House of Flying Daggers (Shi mian mai fu)

All Critics (174) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (151) | Rotten (20) | DVD (33)

A dazzler -- and almost as exciting as its title promises.

January 14, 2005 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel

| Comment

Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

Top Critic

About as viscerally and visually exciting as film can get, and yet it is also fully, ripely romantic in a way that few modern films would dare.

January 14, 2005 Comment

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

As stunning as it is, it also serves notice that House of Flying Daggers will have none of the complexities of Hero.

January 14, 2005 Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press

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Detroit Free Press

Top Critic

Zhang proves that Hero was no accident with House of Flying Daggers, another Chinese period piece resplendent with a dazzling palette and soaring, ambitious fight sequences.

January 13, 2005 Full Review Source: Arizona Republic

| Comment

Bill Muller

Arizona Republic

Top Critic

An intoxicating cocktail of splendid visuals, spectacular action, state-of-the-art computer-generated imagery and some old-fashioned swashbuckling worthy of Hollywood's Golden Age.

January 13, 2005 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

| Comment

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Top Critic

Zhang ... mixes old-school inventiveness with cutting-edge special effects.

December 17, 2004 Full Review Source: Washington Post

| Comment

Desson Thomson

Washington Post

Top Critic

Gorgeous, but also very violent.

December 24, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media

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Nell Minow

Common Sense Media

The studied, artistic affectations may prevent this Mandarin-language art house effort from being as kinetically potent as the films it emulates, but it more than compensates by offering up deeply felt emotions played out on a grand scale more than adequa

July 4, 2008 Full Review Source: ESplatter

| Comment (1)

Steve Biodrowski

ESplatter

Moments of astonishing greatness followed by yawn-inducing romance.

January 10, 2006 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com

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eFilmCritic.com

See it in a theater on the biggest screen you can find

September 1, 2005 Full Review Source: Movie Habit

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Marty Mapes

Movie Habit

Though it is by no means explicitly political, the film expresses a tragic exasperation with the tendency of politics to subsume the rights and lives of individuals.

June 21, 2005 Full Review Source: Not Coming to a Theater Near You

| Comment

Leo Goldsmith

Not Coming to a Theater Near You

The film whips hold of your senses and never lets go, but the story also has an immediacy in its exposition that makes each sequence plunge headfirst into the next.

June 10, 2005 Full Review Source: Movie City News

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Douglas Pratt

Movie City News

Whereas Hero was Merchant Ivory meets fu meets Rashomon, this film is Merchant Ivory meets fu meets high Shakespearean tragedy.

May 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Needcoffee.com

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Widgett Walls

Needcoffee.com

Wonderfully conveys how the act of loving another can be a game, a sacrifice, a ruse, a weapon, a betrayal, and, most of all, a political act.

May 4, 2005 Full Review Source: Lessons of Darkness

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Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

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Audience Reviews for House of Flying Daggers (Shi mian mai fu)

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really pretty crappy, I thought

March 26, 2007

Bob Stinson

Super Reviewer

A provincial guardsman goes undercover and breaks a blind swordswoman out of prison to discover the location of a secret society of rebellious assassins. Zhang Yimou's follow up to Hero is a similarly stunning combination of artistic visuals and beautifully choreographed martial arts, but this time he throws an epic

October 21, 2006

xGary Xx

Super Reviewer

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