Track Listing

1. Opening title
2. Beauty Song (Jia Ren Qu)
3. The Echo Game
4. The Peonyhouse
5. Battle in the Forest
6. Taking her hand
7. Leo's Eyes
8. Lovers - Flower Garden
9. No way out
10. Lovers
11. Farewell No. 1
12. Bamboo Forest
13. Ambush in 10 directions (Shi Mian Mai Fu)
14. Leo's Theme
15. Mei and Leo
16. The House of Flying Daggers
17. Lovers (Mei and Jin)
18. Farewell No. 2
19. Until the end
20. Lovers (Title Song)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27825 in Music
• Released on: 2004-12-06
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack

Amazon.co.uk Review
The films of director Zhang Yimou have a panoramic sweep to them that deftly creates a fantastical vision of ancient Chinese culture for the screen. Yimou's eye for colour and sense of drama demands a score that conveys the emotion, tradition and action of his movies. Here, Shigeru Umebayashi tells each part of the story with a mix of traditional flute, drums, string instruments and, to a lesser degree, orchestra and moody-sounding synthesizers. The lilting melody of "Lovers" is particularly effective, simmering with a passion that leaves no doubt about the tone of the scene; it comes back to dramatic effect at other times in the film as well--the soundtrack closes with a soaring version of it by soprano Kathleen Battle. Similar to but not as heavy as Tan Dun's occasionally overbearing work on Yimou’s film Hero, Umebayashi leans toward the subtle for this love story, and the film is better for it. --Tad Hendrickson

Customer Reviews

Good without being excellent
I had high expectations for this soundtrack I love the movie and I really wanted to like the music. It contains some good music but overall it is too patchy. It's as if the composer ran out of ideas midway through the project. The last two tracks are okay but totally out of place on a Chinese movie soundtrack. The 'Couching tiger, hidden dragon' soundtrack while not great contains much stronger material. Viewed as a movie soundstrack with some Chinese inspiration, it's okay. However, as a showcase of good Chinese music, it falls far short of the mark.

Beautiful music from a great film
House of Flying Daggers is a great film with a good mixture of action and tender moments and this soundtrack is no exception. All twenty pieces included on this CD are beautiful and although I do prefer the soundtracks for both `Hero' and `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', this score is still up there as one of the best I have heard. If this score has a flaw it is that many of the pieces are slightly brief but this is more than made up for by the beauty of the tracks. My personal favourite pieces on this album are the Lovers tracks especially the title song performed by Kathleen Battle. This soundtrack is essential for those that love the film and would not go unappreciated by those who like traditional Chinese music.

Beautiful and passionate.
Uembayashi, being of Japanese origin himself is reason enough to believe this soundtrack is going to be a clearly passionate presentation of colour and life. For a Japanese musician to familiarise himself with Chinese instruments, he would have to have much drive and devotion. House of flying daggers was a beautiful love story. The soundtrack reflects this perfectly with a much more atmospheric and elegant flow of instruments than Tan Dun's "Hero" and "Crouching tiger hidden dragon" soundtracks. Although maybe unfair to compare to these, i beleive that for you to get a good picture of Uembayashi's work you could for instance imagine a much more melodic and string based flow of rythmical extacy. Mixing calm and relazing drum beat with slow flowing strings was a perfect way for the composer to blend he action witht the passion of Tai Chi martial arts. Many a time during this beautiful display you will hear very relaxing and thin textured instruments such as the chinese flute to add to the forest atmosphere and general relxaed tone to follow through with the playful metaphors of Kaneshiro's character. Like most musically brilliant peices, there is a defined melody running throughout the theme and the whole album itself. Although unlike a John Williams 4 note variation, this melody was a carefully crafted and beatuiful flowing river of music, almost grasping you and making you sing with the tune.

All in all this is a perfect aural repesentation of THE HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS. A fine example of beauty both in music and film.