House of Flying Daggers

Zhang Yimou had written a major part for Anita Mui, who withdrew on health grounds before a frame of hers was shot and died on 30 December 2003. Rather than recast, Zhang rewrote the script around her absence, and the film is dedicated to her. To prepare as the blind dancer Mei, Zhang Ziyi spent 2 months living with a girl who lost her sight at 12 to a brain tumour. Most of the shoot took place in Ukraine, in the Hutsul region national park, where the crew spent 70 days around Kosiv in September and October 2003. By Zhang’s own account the snow came early that year; waiting 10 days for it to melt would have spoiled the leaves, so he staged the closing duel in the snow instead. The bamboo forest passages were filmed in China, at Yongchuan. Cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding was nominated at the 77th Academy Awards, where The Aviator took the category. The film was China’s foreign language submission that year but did not make that shortlist. At the 58th BAFTAs it drew 9 nominations and converted none of them. A good fit if you want the fighting built out of colour, texture and weather rather than plausibility. Not for anyone who finds a three way romantic reckoning taking over the last stretch too much.