original_language_of_work house of flying daggers
Wuxia (  , IPA : ), which literally means " martial hero ", is a genre of ___MASK97___ fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China . Although wuxia is traditionally a form of literature , its popularity has caused it to spread to diverse art forms such as ___MASK97___ opera , manhua , films , television series and video games . It forms part of popular culture in many ___MASK97___ - speaking communities around the world . Zhang Yimou ( born 2 April 1950 ) is a ___MASK97___ film director , producer , writer and actor , and former cinematographer . He is counted amongst the Fifth Generation of ___MASK97___ filmmakers , having made his directorial debut in 1987 with " Red Sorghum ". Takeshi Kaneshiro ( ___MASK93___ , Okinawan and Chinese : , romaji : " Kaneshiro Takeshi ", Pinyin : " Jnchéng W ", pronounced , born October 11 , 1973 ) is a Taiwanese - ___MASK93___ actor and singer . Pinyin , or Hàny Pnyn , is the official romanization system for ___MASK34___ in mainland China , Malaysia , Singapore , and Taiwan . It is often used to teach ___MASK34___ , which is normally written using Chinese characters . The system includes four diacritics denoting tones . Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet , and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters . Manhua are ___MASK97___ comics produced in Mainland China , Hong Kong , and Taiwan . Andy Lau Tak - wah , BBS , MH , JP ( born 27 September 1961 ) is a Hong Kong actor , singer and film producer . He has been one of Hong Kong ' s most commercially successful film actors since the mid - 1980s , performing in more than 160 films while maintaining a successful singing career at the same time . In the 1990s , Lau was branded by the media as one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop . ___MASK97___ opera is a popular form of drama and musical theatre in China with roots going back to the early periods in China . It is a composite performance art that is an amalgamation of various art forms that existed in ancient China , and evolved gradually over more than a thousand years , reaching its mature form in the 13th century during the Song Dynasty . Early forms of ___MASK97___ drama are simple , but over time they incorporated various art forms , such as music , song and dance , martial arts , acrobatics , as well as literary art forms to become ___MASK97___ opera . House of Flying Daggers is a 2004 wuxia film directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Andy Lau , Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro . Unlike other wuxia films , it is more of a love story than purely a martial arts film . The use of strong colors is a signature of Zhang Yimou ' s work . Several scenes in a bamboo forest completely fill the screen with green . Near the end of the film , a fight scene is set in a blizzard . The actors and blood are greatly highlighted on a whiteout background . Another scene uses bright yellow as a color theme . The costumes , props , and decorations were taken almost entirely from ___MASK97___ paintings of the period , adding authenticity to the look of the film . The film opened in limited release within the United States on 3 December 2004 , in New York City and Los Angeles , and opened on additional screens throughout the country two weeks later . The film was chosen as China ' s entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for the year 2004 ; but was not nominated in that category though it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography . Martial arts film is a film genre . A subgenre of the action film , martial arts films contain numerous martial arts fights between characters . They are usually the films ' primary appeal and entertainment value , and often are a method of storytelling and character expression and development . Martial arts are frequently featured in training scenes and other sequences in addition to fights . Martial arts films commonly include other types of action , such as hand - to - hand combats , stuntwork , chases , and gunfights . A film genre ( or ) is a motion picture category based on similarities in either the narrative elements or the emotional response to the film ( namely , serious , comic , etc .). Most theories of film genre are borrowed from literary genre criticism . The ___MASK52___ genres include fiction and documentary , from which subgenres have emerged , such as docufiction and docudrama . Other subgenres include the courtroom and trial - focused drama known as the legal drama . Types of fiction which may seem unrelated can also be combined to form hybrid subgenres , such as the melding of horror and comedy in the " Evil Dead " films . Other popular combinations are the romantic comedy and the action comedy film . Cantopop ( a contraction of " ___MASK82___ pop music ") or HK - pop ( short for " Hong Kong pop music ") is a genre of ___MASK82___ music made primarily in Hong Kong , and also used to refer to the cultural context of its production and consumption . Originating in the 1970s , Cantopop reached its height of popularity in the 1980s and 1990s before its slow decline in the 2000s . The term " Cantopop " itself was coined in 1978 after " Cantorock ", a term first used in 1974 . During its height , Cantopop had spread to China , Taiwan , South Korea , Japan , Singapore , Malaysia and Indonesia . Zhang Ziyi ( pronounced ; born 9 February 1979 ) is a ___MASK97___ actress and model . She is considered one of the Four Dan Actresses of China , and the most well - known Asian actress in the West .