Utterly lush and beautiful

Zhang Yimou has made the most beautiful martial arts film ever in House of Flying Daggers, which easily outdoes the admittedly splendid pomposities of Hero, the Chinese director's last effort. It is even more ravishing than Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yet there is something missing: beside the greatest martial arts movie, King Hu's A Touch of Zen, it looks all surface and no inner life.

Even so, you shouldn't miss this Tang Dynasty tale about two government captains (Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro) who fall in love with a blind courtesan (Ziyi Zhang), the woman who holds the key to the secrets of the Flying Dagger rebels.

Ziyi spent a month with a blind girl to prepare for the part. But nothing can have paved the way for feats such as the echo dance at the peony pavilion, where she uses the billowing folds of her dress to replicate the sound of drumbeats.

When she is jailed for pulling a sword on one of the captains, the other rescues her in the hope that she'll take him to the new rebel leader. They use flying daggers to fend off a small army of assailants and finally land up in an autumn snowstorm where the two captains fight over the beauty they both love.

Yimou clearly intends this last section to make his movie as much a romantic tour de force as a feast of action, and he succeeds in suggesting that a martial-arts epic can be moving as well as swishing fun. Costumes to die for, lush cinematography and a musical score that tries hard not to drown its Chinese basics with Westernised orchestration all add to the pleasure.

Yimou was right when he said that Hero was merely a dry-run for Flying Daggers. He has cracked the genre now, showing a clean pair of heels, for instance, to the likes of Kill Bill.

House Of Flying Daggers
Cert: 15