by MATTHEW HAYS

With his latest period martial arts epic, House of Flying Daggers, Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou is again prodding the genre forward while also referring to past traditions. He has a remarkable talent for doing this, and yes, he's made yet another remarkable film. Those hypnotized by Hero - and we were many in number - will find reason to rejoice with Daggers, a worthy follow-up.

Zhang arrived at the Toronto International Film Festival in September to the kind of media and audience fawning generally reserved for a Scorsese or a Godard. House of Flying Daggers again proved he was capable of connecting the arthouse with the box office. Set in the ninth century during the decline of the Tang Dynasty, Zhang has an underground army, the House of Flying Daggers, rebelling against the reigning government. Zhang Ziyi plays one of the key rebels, a blind dancer who leaps about, kicks ass and fends off romantic overtures from battling rivals. Dance and fight sequences alternate, each one better than the last. In particular, there is a battle scene amid a bamboo forest that is as hilarious as it is intricate.

Yin and Zhang

Zhang confirms he wanted to keep an eye on Chinese traditions while also deviating from genre norms. "Traditionally, martial arts films have always had a bad guy," he says. "There's always a scene at the very end where right and wrong and good and evil are contrasted. But I wanted to do something different here. Each character in Daggers is fighting for their own desires, their own feelings. But not one of them is entirely right or wrong. We really wanted to make every character in the film neither entirely good nor evil."

Zhang also shot his martial arts sequences very poetically and lyrically. Like Hero, this is not your average studio action movie. "In the West, you see a lot of blood and body parts flying around. That's how action is created. I really wanted to capture an abstract beauty, to maintain a poetic spirit in the film."

And while set in the ninth century, Zhang says part of Daggers relates to shifts in life in contemporary China. "With Hero, we were talking about a very traditional Chinese philosophy: the belief that you should sacrifice your own needs, your own desires, for the greater good. There is an old saing in Chinese, that you should worry before the whole world starts to worry, and enjoy after everybody else enjoys. It's an honour for an individual to regard this code and responsibility.

"But with Daggers, we've switched that around. Young people in China are now much different than my generation, which is more traditional. The young people now follow their own desires first. So this story is actually quite a modern one. In Chinese tradition, to rebel and pursue your own desires is frowned upon. In Hero, we wanted to show a more traditional way of living, while in Daggers, we wanted to be more contemporary."

Charged with corruption

Believe it or not, Zhang has actually taken some heat in his native China for what some see as a direction that is too commercial. "It's normal to be criticized," he says, seemingly unfazed. "Most people are not used to seeing me make commercial films. So they've slotted me into one type. People feel it's somehow a corruption to make a commercial film. For me, I've worked very hard to make a film that is artistic, that has integrity, while also making something people want to come and see. Both films have made over $400-million, so people do want to see them.

"I like to think that I make two different kinds of films, the more artsy or festival favourite films, and then the more commercial ones. You learn from both kinds of filmmaking. It's stimulating. The next film I'm doing doesn't have a single fight scene in it, for example."

For her part, Daggers' star Zhang Ziyi says the commercialism in Zhang Yimou's style is a good thing. "A director's stylistic approach to a film is much like his personality. He makes films people want to see, and that's fantastic. More and more Western audiences are getting curious about martial arts movies. That's a great thing - once that door is open, more Chinese films will find audiences. We're very fortunate to have a director like Zhang Yimou. He is the pride of China."

House of Flying Daggers opens Friday, Dec. 17

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