Movie – House of Flying Daggers (2004)

After the success of his 2002 film Hero director Zhang Yimou returned to the wuxia genre to make House of Flying Daggers.  This movie is set several hundred years later than Hero, specifically in the 9^th century during the decline of the Tang Dynasty.  While Hero was overlooked by the Academy for a Cinematography nomination, House of Flying Daggers was not.  It was the only Oscar nomination the film received, though.  This time around Zhang’s movie has just as much intrigue and plotting as in Hero, but he adds a romantic component.  The result is a film that may go in directions that you are not expecting.

Movie – Hero (2002)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had opened the door for big budget, well done martial arts dramas.  In my opinion the 2002 film Hero perfected them.  First, it is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen.  How this did not even receive an Oscar nomination for Cinematography, let alone win, is beyond me.  Second it has universal themes of heroism and sacrifice that will resonate with most everyone who watches it.  Finally, it is directed by the most respected Chinese film director there is – Zhang Yimou.  The result is the best martial arts film I have ever seen.

Movie – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (CTHD) was a landmark martial arts film in many ways.  Prior to 2000 most people in the U.S. thought of that genre as badly dubbed, poorly plotted, “chopsocky” films with cheesy sound effects.  This was due to all the inexpensive films of this nature that made up a lot of weekend TV programming.  CTHD is about as far from that as you can get.  It was the first martial arts film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (and this was back when only five films could be nominated).  In fact, it received a total of 10 nominations – the most ever for a foreign language film.  It won four of them, including wins for Cinematography, Score, and Art Direction.  No foreign language film has ever won Best Picture, but in my opinion this should have been the one to do it.  While Gladiator was an entertaining film, CTHD was the better of the two.

Movie – Not One Less (1999)

Director Zhang Yimou established himself in the early 1990s with such films as Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern.  In the 2000s he turned his considerable talents to a set of wuxia movies.  In between he did some quieter films.  Among them was the movie Not One Less.  The title of the movie is actually shown with the picture of a child between the words “One” and “Less”, making the title more like “Not One Child Less.”  That’s important because that is the theme of the movie.