(16) to lead life like a wind and the arthouse wuxia

北方有佳人，绝世而独立。
In the north there is a beauty;
surpassing the world,
she stands alone.

一顾倾人城，再顾倾人国。
A glance from her will overthrow a city;
another glance will overthrow a nation.

宁不知倾城与倾国。
One would rather not know whether
it will be a city or nation overthrown.

佳人难再得。
As it would be hard to see a beauty like this again.

House of Flying Daggers play on the theme of a Han Dynasty poem as above and which is sang as a motif throughout. It is a film from part of an event some years back, had it on DVD later but haven't touched it until recently.

The arthouse wuxia genre was probably first pioneered by King Hu, most notably in A Touch of Zen (1971). My favourite piece is however Wong Kar-wai's reinterpretation of the Condor Heroes in Ashes of Time (1994). Wuxia films were tainted in the late 90s by the likes such as the forgettable and CGI-heavy Storm Riders, until Ang Lee brought back the romanticism of the wandering swordsman with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and winning western critics over. Zhang Yimou took the hint from Ang Lee, expressing that it is the childhood dream of every Chinese filmmaker to make a wuxia film. His vision was Hero and then his second foray, House of Flying Daggers, which was a Cannes favourite back in 2004.

I have a lot of attachment towards Zhang's films, mainly because his earlier works like Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern had a huge impact on me when I was still a child and was probably some of my earliest impressions of cinema.