Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

House of the Flying Daggers
2004
**½
Director: Yimou Zhang
Cast: Jiyi Zhang, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau, Dandan Song

In the ninth century two police officers use a blind dancer as a decoy to track down the leaders of the titular terrorist organisation. However, once both of the men reveal romantic interests towards the girl, the original conspiracy plot is thrown out of the window. Yimou Zhang follows Hero with another formulaic martial arts movie. The usual gravity-defying swordfights come at regular intervals, so regular in fact that you can set your clock to them. It all looks great, but this genre on the whole is starting to get a bit old hat.