Waiting for the Check
Posted on | December 27, 2004 at 11:18 am | Comments Off
Watching House of Flying Daggers, the latest wuxia (Chinese sword and sorcery) movie to make it over to these shores and play in mainstream theaters with subtitles rather than dubbing, is like eating dinner at a European-style restaurant. You know that after it’s over, you’ll look back fondly on the experience and know that your life is better off for having gone through it, but while you’re there, you just keep waiting for the next course to arrive and wishing for better between-course conversation with your dinner companions.
To be sure, House is a well-done movie and a wonder to look at. The cinematography and use of color are extraordinary, though I would still give the nod to Yimou Zhang’s last movie, Hero, in this category. Ziyi Zhang is beautiful, and she is captivating in her action scenes, whether she’s performing an elaborate dance or is fending off attackers. The story is extremely linear – no cross-cutting to events happening elsewhere or anything like that. The plot is basically a romance with action scenes and plot twists galore. But after awhile, I just didn’t care about what was happening on the screen. It’s like listening to someone else describe their dreams – infinitely interesting to the dreamer, yet boring and predictable (in its nonsensicalness) to the listener. As each new plot twist came along, I couldn’t help thinking the filmmakers didn’t care about the twist either – they just needed a hook in there to keep the audience playing along while they showed the next gorgeous autumnal panorama or the next lone tear slowing sliding its way between Zhang’s innocent eye and small but pouty mouth while she lies in the grass and wonders how she got there. The movie seemed a lot longer than its two hour running time, and had a lot of what I would consider padding. I kept waiting for the waiter to deliver the check, even knowing that I would have to actually ask for it first.
Here’s the part where people say to me, “You’re always complaining about Hollywood movies, and how predictable they are, and how they’re just one quick scene after another with no emotional resonance or audience involvement, and yet here you’re criticizing a movie that takes its time and tell its deeper story with quiet character moments.” Fair enough, but when there is scene after scene of long, lingering looks and such, the opposite happens to me and I lose all emotional connection with the characters. I become enured to it. Maybe that’s just me (and is a subject for a future entry). But a quick reaction shot is often more effective at conveying a character moment than a lingering one, especially when you have an actress who’s not quite there yet in sustaining a wide range of expressions/emotions. The only times I was startled by Zhang’s facial expressions were the few times she actually smiled, as those seemed to be out of left field and broke up her face in an uneven way, instead of in the oh-so-perfect way it would show anguish or confusion. I found the whole thing unmoving, though it was filled with big emotional moments.
See this movie if you haven’t already. It’s good to send a message that we want to see more of these kinds of movies. Just don’t go in expecting another Hero (or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for that matter). Go and see it because you should, because everyone should eat at European-style restaurant every once in a while, even if it’s a crappy one. There is much to enjoy, but there is also much to wish for (check, please).
With this movie review, I am introducing my new movie rating system: the Nod-O-Meter. The Nod-O-Meter specifies the number of times I caught myself nodding off during the film. High score: bad, Low score: good. I give House of Flying Daggers a six on the Nod-O-Meter. That’s pretty high. The odd thing is that most of those nods came during character moments rather than action scenes, which is the opposite of how it usually happens.
Latre.