Hmmm...

Just got back from seeing House of Flying Daggers at the Esquire.

There were some lovely monochromatic scenes, a goregeously choreographed dance/martial arts/percussion scene, incredible overall cinematography, a visually stunning scene with some good Chinese pole artists, and really interesting uses of foley as music.

However, there was also a deplorably 2-dimensional story, a character named Leo (seriously, Leo?), the translators making the characters say things like "Are you for real?" in a movie set in the late 9th century, a love theme that sounds just like the theme from The Godfather, and (forgive me for noticing) a very visibly Japanese (albeit goregeous) actor playing a Chinese police captain. All that, and for a movie clocking in UNDER two hours, it seemed SO LONG.

I hear that Hero was much better than this, as was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (although CTHD was not as good as Hero), it was fine. I could have waited for DVD for this one, but seeing a movie tonight was about as much as I was up to.