House of Flying Daggers is an interesting movie, Chinese, yet still it was filled with many typical American Hollywood characteristics. It has the makings of a great kung-fu/martial arts movie, touching on politics and ethics, but eventually we find out that the main point is not dealing with the government but rather a love story. It's the classic Hollywood setup: two opposing sides. A member of each side runs into the other. They both at first dislike each other but they fall in love. Then of course either one or both of them has to die. A typical Romeo and Juliet scenario. Especially the end battle here:
Very preditictable in the sense that they wanted to make it very epic like when the weather randomly changes from fall-like to a heavy blanket of snow within 5 seconds. One is the jealous man who also loves the main female character and the other is her true love and both of course have to basically duke it out to prove almost which one is more worthy.
Many of the fight scenes in the movie take the 'Matrix' approach to things with the camera following the blade or arrow as it travels towards its victim in an almost slow-motion way. They probably did this to appeal more to American people and the style of fight scenes we are used to as well as to try to keep Asian interest by keeping the kung-fu style there. Personally, I think this strategy worked because I loved the fight scenes. It was the type that just made me go "OH MY GOSH!! That is so cool!". However, not everyone likes this style yet it was used in every single fight scene. They tried to Americanize the movie a little too much (with the slow motion, the predictable ending, etc) but I think it was successful in selling it to most of the American people :)
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