House of Flying Daggers.
by sam on 12/20/2004I hadn’t seen a movie in a while, so I took myself to see House of Flying Daggers yesterday afternoon. It’s really the most visually stunning movie that I’ve seen in quite some time. And the story is so engrossing, that two hours later, when the movie ended, I couldn’t understand why the screen had gone black – I seriously thought that only half that time had gone by – I could have easily sat there for another hour or two.
The theater crowd, on the other hand, drove me up a wall. People around me kept talking, as if a subtitled movie means that no one cares about the dialogue, and there were at least three cellphones that went off in the middle of the show. Then, the woman in front of me actually made a phone call in the middle of the film. And these weren’t teenagers. This woman was around 40. I kicked her seat.
The other thing I didn’t get? The people who exploded in laughter at really inappropriate times. It was like, ooh, funnily dressed Chinese people – clearly a source a humor. I never understand when crowds have reactions like that. Do they not realize that they’ve gone to see a foreign-language martial arts movie set in the ninth century?
And while I’m at it, what’s with the people who roll into the theater after the previews start and can’t understand why the only seats left are in the front row? Apparently showing up late and talking through the previews isn’t just for old ladies anymore.