| | eastbayexpress.com | Film | Cuts Like a Knife |
 | | But for the second film in a row, director Zhang Yimou is concerned less with the story than in the telling of it, and so the merits of House of Flying Daggers cannot be boiled down into discussions of plot points and performances. |
 | | To do so, to merely reiterate key moments of storytelling while informing you that actress Zhang Ziyi burns like a young sword-wielding Audrey Hepburn, would slight a masterpiece that must be seen to be believed. |
 | | Like Hero, Yimou's film released in China in 2002 and made available by Miramax in the United States this summer, Flying Daggers ratchets up the high-wire razzle-dazzle used by Ang Lee in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and sets the volume at 11. |
| www.eastbayexpress.com /issues/2004-12-15/film/movies2.html (795 words) |