Shi Mian Mai Fu and the Movies

Yesterday I went with Sonia to see the new Zhang Yimou film “House of Flying Daggers,” starring Zhang Ziyi, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau. This is an English title, the Mandarin is "Shi Mian Mai Fu" which means something like "Ambushed from Ten Directions" (and the Japanese are releasing it as simply "Lovers"). Not sure when this one will reach the states, but I can say that it’s even better than Hero (Zhang Yimou's last Martial Arthouse outing), not to mention "Crouching Tiger," (the film to which any luscious period kung fu film is inevitably compared). It's definitely one of the most beautiful films I've seen in a long while-- the actors, sets, production design, costumes, choreography, cinematography and exquisitely contrived plot are all simply breathtaking. (You can see more pictures here, and a slightly cheesy trailer for the Japan release here.)

Though a lot of critics who saw the film at Cannes and elsewhere are giving it rave reviews, the local HK critics have been less than kind-- they frankly don't like it, and neither does the general public. My friend Sonia with whom I saw the film was polite, but I could tell she didn't like it that much either. "It was beautiful, but the plot was too unbelievable," seems to be the party line. Entire university conferences are held on the topic of global cinema and the international film market (such as the Taiwanese Cinema Conference I helped organize this past year at Yale), and particularly address this paradox of directors from "national cinemas" being ignored or disliked in their "nation" of origin. I don't have much original to say on the matter, except that it is always funny to realize that liking the kinds of "Eastern" films I do just proves my very "Western" tastes. (For instance, I like Tsai Ming-Liang, who has more fans in the audience of the Venice Film Festival than in Taiwan.) Then again, I like a bunch of Asian mainstream popcorn pop-cinema too (everyone should see the amazingly fun Infernal Affairs before Martin Scorcese rips it off ), a lot of which is appreciated by home audiences and foreign critics alike (ex. Takashi Miike). The whole paradigm gets even weirder, however, when you account for international grass-is-greener cinemaesthetes, who are bound to dislike their local art directors because "they pander to foreigners", but prefer foreign (art) directors because they seem "purer." I met one Hong Kong film buff who sniffs at Wong Kar-Wai but (ironically) loves Quentin Tarantino. In the U.S., of course, it would just be the reverse. (Incidentally, I don't care if liking Wong Kar-Wai brands me as a predictable foreigner or anything else-- he is pretty much the reason I came to Hong Kong, all these years after the revelation of seeing Chungking Express for the first time-- and I'm just going to wait for October's 2046 while holding my smelly Western breath.)