Apart from awe-inspiring fights and intriguing plot twists, what makes Zhang Yimou's new film House Of Flying Daggers even more likeable than his previous hit Hero is the touching melodrama. 

Using plenty of computer generated stunts and martial art experts from Hong Kong and China, Zhang -- with the help of stunt director Tony Ching Siu-Tung -- has made one of the most exciting and visually gorgeous films of the decade.

It is easily the year's most stunning romantic drama.

There is, however, plenty to complain in the movie, which starts as a political intrigue and ends up as a romantic tragedy. A blind girl executing superwoman stunts, for one, is difficult to accept. The prolonged climax also takes away some of the film's vitality.

And yet the movie, which is being shown in a handful of theatres across America and will add hundreds of screens in the coming weeks, offers rich drama, action and a pulse quickening drum dance sequence.

Zhang Yimou told rediff.com at the Toronto International film festival that while in Hero -- which has just been released on video and DVD in America -- he dealt with people sacrificing themselves for a national cause, in the new film, he dealt with sacrifice in the context of individual aspirations.  

The story of star-crossed lovers caught between political forces was filmed in China and the Ukraine, against breath-taking landscapes.

Zhang Ziyi, who played one of the lead roles in Hero, also stars in House of Flying Daggers.

The movie deserves to be seen a second time to make sense of its complicated plot.

The film is set in 859 AD in the waning and corrupt days of the Tang Dynasty. A relentless, shadowy revolutionary group called the House of Flying Daggers is up in arms against the dynasty. Their leader has been assassinated, but under a new mysterious leader, the rebels continue attacking the tottering regime.

The film starts with two Tang Dynasty officers Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Leo (Andy Lau) trying to trick Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a blind dancer, into leading them to the Flying Daggers. They suspect she is the daughter of the slain rebel leader and is plotting revenge.  

Jin and Mei's dangerous journey brings them together, even though Leo, for reasons we understand much later, warns his friend against romantic entanglement.

The journey also forces Mei and Jin to confront royal soldiers leading to what may seem to be a formula bamboo-forest fight.

Nevertheless, the sheer execution of the fight makes it one of the film's highlights. Never mind how many such fights you have seen, it is a work of stunning art.

Jin and Mei's journey becomes more complicated when no rebel leaders are arrested and the two fall in love. For Mei, the conflict is deep as, unknown to Jin, she already has a zealous lover shadowing her.

Her newfound love is sorely tested when Mei's superiors order her to kill Jin. When she makes a bold decision that could endanger her life as never before, Leo follows her, reminding her that she must belong to him.

Zhang Ziyi constantly reminds us that she is not only a superb dancer and martial art exponent but also a strong actress.

Watch her play a Chinese woman set on assassinating a high ranking Japanese occupying force leader in Purple Butterfly, now running in a selected American cities. Her role is far from delicate, and she exudes far more raw passion and anger in Purple Butterfly than in House Of Flying Daggers. That is, of course, not to suggest her performance in Butterfly is better.

Shigeru Umebayashi's music, Chinese with Western modulations, serves the movie's varied needs. It enhances the film's martial art sequences and adds to the lyrical and tragic scenes.