Secret Daggers

BEAUTY AND REVOLUTION TANGLE DURING THE TANG DYNASTY

Will there be a more visually spectacular film this year than Zhang Yimou's gorgeous House of Flying Daggers? I doubt it, unless maybe Terrence Malick has a secret picture in the can, but chances are it wouldn't also be the year's best action movie. Zhang, one of world cinema's great poets, has recently re-invented himself as a director of upscale martial-arts movies. But the action in his earlier Hero tended more toward the dreamily balletic than anything bruiseworthy. Here Zhang kicks up the intensity a notch, working with the same veteran fight choreographer, Tony Ching Siu-Tung, as he did on Hero, and the result is as visceral as it is ravishing—a movie to make you both flinch and sigh. The MacGuffin involves Tang-dynasty intrigue, but the film's real concern, aside from ass-kicking and dagger-throwing, is an overheated but undercooked love triangle whose main fascination is Ziyi Zhang (Hero; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Arguably the world's most delicate-looking action star, she's as wispy as an Olsen twin but could brain Halle Berry's Catwoman or any Charlie's Angel with a single elbow. Alas, the movie's last half-hour turns draggy while the mushy stuff is sorted out, but by then you've more than gotten your money's worth. The first big set piece, by the way, is a radically percussive dance number featuring Ziyi, bolts of heavy silk, and a dozen or so drums. As exhilarating and head-clearing as any of the fights, it suggests Zhang (who once directed a stage production of Turandot) may also have a great musical in him.

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(Rating: ★★★1/2)

BRUCE HANDY