House of Flying Daggers PSP Movie

Sound TechnologyJapan, Inc. presents House of Flying Daggers, in the new UMD Mini (Universal Media Disc) format.

Features:

• A better than average making-of featurette, a peek at visual effects, storyboard and more PlayStation Portable Movie; DVD


• Lush, eye-popping and mesmerizing are woefully inadequate words to describe this widely reviewed and praised Chinese film


• Set in 859 AD during a corrupt period of the Tang Dynasty, two government officers search for an underground rebellion calling themselves House of Flying Daggers


• The extraordinary cinematography by Xiaoding Zhao must be seen to be believed; Extras include dense commentary from director Zhang Yimou and actor Ziyi Zhang

Order House of Flying Daggers for Sony Playstation Portable (UMD format)

About Sony PSP UMD discs: Universal Media Discs (UMDs) are playable only in the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) and are not compatible with contemporary DVD players. The UMD is a newly developed compact, high capacity optical format that can store up to 1.8 GB of digital data on a 60mm disc or an entire feature film on a single UMD video. Movies on UMD will be produced in 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio and encoded using advanced AVC compression, which provides a high level of picture quality.

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PSP UMD House of Flying Daggers Movie Review
Cubist (United States) - Fresh from the success of Hero, Zhang Yimou and his current muse, Ziyi Zhang, reunited for another breathtaking martial arts epic, complete with some of the most impressive action sequences since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Like these movies, House of Flying Daggers features a tragic love story at its heart.

As he demonstrated in Hero, Yimou has fantastic eye for period detail and this film is no different with its colourful costumes and intricately detailed sets. The director eschews the heightened, primary colour scheme of Hero for a more naturalistic look with House of Flying Daggers. There is a predominantly earth tone look with warm colours like yellows, reds and browns. It is a nice contrast to the stylized action, which is impressively choreographed.

As he proved with Hero, Yimou's House of Flying Daggers is so much more than a martial arts movie. It is also features characters that we grow to care about which only makes the film's conclusion that much more tragic. This movie is just the right balance of style and substance, something that is very hard to pull of successfully with this kind of movie but so far Yimou is two for two. Hopefully, Zhang will continue to be his cinematic muse and they collaborate on future projects.

There is a subtitled audio commentary by Ziyi Zhang and Zhang Yimou. Yimou tends to dominate, talking about the look of the movie and the choreography of the action. Zhang does talk about all of the practicing she did for the dancing and action sequences. Fortunately, she already had six years of dance training which helped prepare for her intensive role.

"The Making of House of Flying Daggers" is a 45-minute look at how this film came together. This well-made featurette examines various aspects, such as story, themes and interviews with the actors who speak highly of Yimou.

"Creating the Visual Effects" is a brief featurette that shows various scenes as they looked originally and then with the CGI added.

Also included are "Storyboard Comparisons" for six scenes and allow one to watch the storyboards alongside the finished product.

"Costumes Gallery" offers a brief look at drawings of the outfits worn by various characters with the final product.

There is also a "Behind the Scenes Photo Gallery" with many on-the-set and on-location photos.