Blu-rays, DVDs & more
eBay affliate link
Art of the Movies
Buy posters on MoviePoster.com
IMDb
Shi mian mai fu movie stills
Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
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. Read more
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: One of the most visually astonishing martial-arts fantasies ever made. Read more
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: It's as thrilling and lushly beautiful a movie as has been released all year, matched only by Zhang's epic Hero. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: This is the sort of film we're intended to wallow in, barely coming up for air -- so dazzled, we barely need to breathe. Read more
Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle: Like an extraordinary-looking but intellectually limited fashion model. Read more
David Edelstein, Slate: This is the most intoxicatingly beautiful martial arts picture I've ever seen. Read more
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: If this isn't the most visually stunning film to be released in the U.S. this year, it's second to Yimou's Hero. Read more
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 more
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. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It has sequences of balletic martial arts action that can knock you back, open-mouthed, in your comfy multiplex chair. Yet the movie amounts to frustratingly little by the time it's over. Read more
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: An emotion-charged epic of style and sophistication that is exciting and at times humorous. Read more
Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: We get a movie that's easy to look at but that leaves us emotionally cold. Read more
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Delivers many of the absurd pleasures of opera. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: An outrageously gorgeous spectacle of balletic aggression. Read more
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: House of Flying Daggers is loaded with the kinds of visual wonders that make adult moviegoers feel like giddy kids. Read more
David Chute, L.A. Weekly: The most seamless piece of sensuous expressionism Zhang has created since Ju Dou. Read more
Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: The romantic adventure catches the eye but never penetrates the psyche. Read more
Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: The most gorgeous movie of the year. Read more
Rex Reed, New York Observer: The director is an audacious stylist, and the intricate, carefully constructed, special-effects-enhanced martial-arts sequences are riveting. Read more
A.O. Scott, New York Times: Though it is in constant, breathtaking motion, Zhang Yimou's gorgeous entertainment is not especially moving. Read more
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: The director has taken the martial-arts genre to its ultimate flowering: to ennoble women as full-fledged warriors capable of defending their own honor before deciding on the man they chose to love. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: A dazzler -- and almost as exciting as its title promises. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Combined with Hero, this gives Zhang an amazing one-two stylistic action punch. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The film is so good to look at and listen to that, as with some operas, the story is almost beside the point, serving primarily to get us from one spectacular scene to another. Read more
Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Offers more of [Zhang Yimou's] beautiful photography, graceful staging, intricately choreographed fight scenes and metaphorical imagery. Read more
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Though less of a virtuoso work than Hero, House of Flying Daggers is much more emotionally immediate. Read more
Christy Lemire, Journal News (Westchester, NY): Read more
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: If pure action is your game, this House is your home. Read more
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: [An] even zippier, more cunning kung fu caper [than Hero]. Read more
Claudia Puig, USA Today: House of Flying Daggers is the rare film that inspires audiences to suspend a sense of reality and allow themselves to be transported, as if under a spell, to an alternate, fantastic world. Read more
Derek Elley, Variety: The action set pieces really are the core of Daggers, and these hit the mark with eye-popping accuracy and sonic elan. Read more
Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: You'll either think that Zhang's new sumptuous, digitally Botoxed roustabout is simply doing what Hong Kong movies have been too fast, cheap, and out of control to do before or that it's commodifying the tropes into a streamlined McSpectacle. Read more
Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Zhang ... mixes old-school inventiveness with cutting-edge special effects. Read more
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: It's the ravishment of romance, adventure, nobility, betrayal, all those big, primary-colored old-fashioned movie emotions. Read more