House of Flying Daggers (Shi mian mai fu)

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

  • 88% of critics liked it
    (164 reviews)

  • 81% of users liked it
    (196,249 ratings)

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… More

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PG-13, 1 hr. 59 min.
Directed By
Yimou Zhang, Andy Lau
Written By
Yimou Zhang
Genres
Drama, Action & Adventure, Art House & International
In Theaters
Dec 3, 2004 Wide
On DVD
Mar 29, 2005
Sony Pictures Classics

Critic Reviews

  • Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

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

  • Tom Long, Detroit News

    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.

  • , Detroit Free Press

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

  • Bill Muller, Arizona Republic

    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.

  • Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

    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.

Read all 14 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

  • Bob S


    really pretty crappy, I thought

  • xGary X


    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… More

  • Jan Marc M


    House Of Flying Daggers is an exquisite and pleasant barrage of colors, music, martial arts, history, and culture underlined by romance and mystery. Creative fight choreography. Splendid photography. Artful cinematography.

  • Lewis C


    "If we meet again, one of us will have to die." More than 1000 years ago, an outlaw band called the Flying Daggers terrorizes the weak and ineffective imperial government of China, while earning the love of the public by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. When… More

  • Drake T


    3/4 through the movie and the plot considerably thickens into a Shakespearean romance without so much as a foreshadow. There's so little happening before that other than contrive romance you really have to try and appreciate the action/visuals. Which was hard, what with the… More

Read all 20 featured audience ratings

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