I liked Hero, haven't seen the house of dagggers thing yet. Should be fun. I primarily go for the cinematography and hearing the language.
You liked Hero? I felt cheated and threatened by it. Aside from using the spectacle of colour... blandly, how much payoff was there really after discovering--twice!--that the story being told on screen wasn't real? And the pointlessly balletic martial arts. And the emperor killed everyone! I know there was a deep Confucian message being demonstrated, or trying to be demonstrated, but the film emptied it of content. Unless i misunderstood--since I was watching it inside China I couldn't work out if it was caustic criticism or overlord propaganda.
It'd be totally weird to put
House of Fly Daggers, Shi Mian Mai Fu, in any category along with Hero.
House of Flying Daggers is beautiful, the story replete with bizarre Chinese values that nonetheless make sense, and--first time I've ever seen this--the Mandarin spoken by the actors is beautiful. It's lovely to listen to. Never thought I'd find that in a Chinese film. Every halfwit student I know dismisses the film. "Oh, that's just made for foreigners," they say.
Elsewhere, I've been watching some flawed but fabulous films.
Mister Brooks with Kevin Costner. Serial killers are fun.
Stranger Than Fiction with Will Ferrel. Ferrel doesn't quite hit the black pathos note needed, more like puppy dog pathos, but black humour story moves along nicely, and sometimes laugh out loud funnily, around him.
and, best for last,
28 Weeks Later.
The first film,
28 Days Later, is super cool in concept and ends in a disappointingly bizarre At The Manor panto, whereas the sequel,
28 Weeks Later, is just super cool. Spanish director, angry zombies, and an astonishingly moving, embracing, compelling soundtrack. Horror films have finally stopped being camp.
Forgive me too, but I think the latest Harry Potter film is pretty good.
uTorrent is my friend.