Critical Reception
House of Flying Daggers debuted in May at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival to enthusiastic receptions. The film reportedly received a 20-minute standing ovation at its Cannes Film Festival premiere.
The film received widespread critical acclaim. At film review aggregation website Metacritic, the film received an average score of 89%, based on 37 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a "Certified Fresh" score of 88% based on reviews from 160 critics; with "top critics" given the film a 95% rating. Metacritic also ranked the film at the end of the year as the 6th best reviewed film of 2004.
Phil Hall of Film Threat raved the film by stating: "Quite simply, House of Flying Daggers is a film that sets several new standards for production and entertainment values. It is a wild riot of color, music, passion, action, mystery, pure old-fashioned thrills and even dancing. With an endless supply of imagination and a kinetic force of nature in its amazing star Zhang Ziyi, House of Flying Daggers cuts all other films to shreds." Desson Thomas of the Washington Post praised the director Zhang Yimou's use of color in the film as "simply the best in the world" and described the film as: "the slow-motion trajectory of a small bean, hurled from a police captain's hand, is a spectacular thing. It's a stunning, moving image, like a hummingbird caught in action." While Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times praised the film by stating: "House of Flying Daggers finds the great Chinese director at his most romantic in this thrilling martial arts epic that involves a conflict between love and duty carried out to its fullest expression."
A.O. Scott of The New York Times described the film as: "A gorgeous entertainment, a feast of blood, passion and silk brocade." But the review also stated: "House of Flying Daggers for all its fire and beauty, may leave you a bit cold in the end." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film four out of four stars and states: "Forget about the plot, the characters, the intrigue, which are all splendid in House of Flying Daggers, and focus just on the visuals", and Ebert also states that: "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." House of Flying Daggers was placed at 93 on Slant Magazine's best films of the 2000s. and ranked #77 in Empire magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
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