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: #81287 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

What a joy
There wasa time when the soundtrack to a movie was the most unheard music on the planet. But thanks to the recognition of this art form at Oscar time and even in the music charts it has taken on a life of its own. When I saw this film recently I was transported not only by the imagery in front of me but the feast of music my ears were enjoying. The love theme was on my lips for a long time after I left the cinema. As there will be a hiatus between the cinema performance and its release on DVD I am so glad that the soundtrack became so immediately available and thanks to the miracle of Amazon I had the music in my life very quickly. This is a great piece of music that evokes the cinematic piece as well as standing alone as an enjoyable entertainmnet

Great soundtrack
After watching the film (twice!!) at the cinema I decided I had to buy this. It is a beautiful mix of chinese music, depicting all the best bits of the film from battle scenes with drums to the tender pipes of the lovers tune. It includes the song sang by Mei at the Peony Pavillion and the closing song by Kathleen Battle has some haunting lyrics. If you loved the film and like the chinese culture of it, then this soundtrack is a must.

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.