House Of Flying Daggers Recommended

So… I think I’m going to have to swear off of movies that are heralded as “visual masterpieces.” I fell for it with that trifle of a movie Across the Universe. And again, last night, we ended up falling for it again with House of Flying Daggers. Oh. My. God.

I just don’t get it. It’s… crap? I will say this, though: Those Easterners, they have some imagination. It’s not good imagination mind you, but still it’s quite some imagination. Watch this movie, you’ll understand what I mean. Oh. My. God. And you know what? It’s got the beginnings of a good story. But they don’t make anything of it, instead trying to focus on palettes of color in place of substance of character. They tried to be artistic & symbolic, and instead just failed miserably at making a worthwhile movie.

It’s called House of Flying Daggers because it’s supposedly about an underground Chinese anit-government cult by that name. However, very little about the movie has anything to do with them. I mean hell, the could have called it “Flying Space Monkeys eat Spaghetti,” and it would have applied to the actual film content about as much as the title they did go with. It’s like calling your house The Blue House but it’s painted red or something. I mean, why?

There’s too much to really tear it all apart here; it’s just ridiculous from beginning to end. However, the end has two hilarious things that I DO have to mention. First up, ‘The Conundrum:’

There’s this love triangle: A woman who has an old flame that can’t let go, and a new guy she’s in love with. They’re all warriors of course, so it’s a fight to the death between the males, and the old flame by this point as mortally wounded the love of his life for betraying him by sticking a dagger into her heart. Now, after laying dead for a while, she gets up to stop them from fighting. As her old flame is preparing to throw a dagger and kill the new flame, she tells him that if he throws his dagger to kill the new guy, she’ll throw her dagger to hill him, and thus herself as well. This is supposedly a conundrum. It’s such a conundrum that the new guy drops his weapon and marches towards the old flame, saying that since he’s closer, her dagger would not reach the other guy in time, and she’d die for nothing.

Except that… the most logical way out of that situation is to just tell the other guy “dude, don’t throw your knife; we’ll all die man. You don’t throw yours, I don’t die, you don’t die, and she doesn’t die. Win-win-win, dude.”

This simple logic however, fails to reach their feeble brains.

OK now on to the 2nd idiotic thing, ‘The Winter Battle:’

In this same fight scene at the end, they’re fighting in a field on a sunny-but-cloudy day. Suddenly the scene turns to obviously-fake snow storm! AAAAHHH!!!! It’s actually so fake as to be ridiculous, and so superfluous that the only thing that I can think that made them make the scene that had no snow (in an open field) was this: They filmed an ending in the field, but they figured out in editing that it sucked (apparently, more than the ending they eventually went with, which is a scary thought). Anyway, they had to film the scene a different way, but now it was winter, so they just figured they’d go back and edit in a snow storm into the old footage.

And you know what? If it wasn’t for those darn kids, they would have gotten away with it, too. You know, those darn kids, and maybe 20/20 vision, and, like, anyone with half a brain. If it wasn’t for that stuff though, they totally would have convinced people. Totally.

:-|

However, I recommend you see it. I almost turned it off, but in all reality, I’m glad I saw it. The movie almost works on a comedic level it’s so bad, and honestly, you have to see it all from beginning to end to really get the full effect. No lie, I’m recommending a movie that I know full-well sucks ass. And I’m not kidding. It’s so bad, you have to see it.

If you have seen Magnolia with Tom Cruise? That movie sucked too, right? But if you had turned it off before the end, you would have missed out on the raining frogs, remember? And remember how you laughed your ass off at that? The movie was so bad, and that scene so obnoxiously absurd, that it was almost worth it. Well, that same thing applies here. It’ s so obnoxiously absurd, that it’s almost worth it.

So give it a rent. You can blame me later ;-)