Someday, I'll have to see Hero again because I didn't really connect with it the first time. It was impressive and all, I guess, and I don't want to get into all the reasons it missed me. (One, though: I kept thinking all twists seemed to be for, well, twist sake. Especially because, at the end, turns out they were all just wrong: China is to be united.)

But I may have to check it out again, because I thought House of Flying Daggers was pretty damn terrific. The twisting plot was a better fit because it had greater emotional impact. The more we learned about the characters, the more they deepened. The twists seemed organic. (And, really, our entry point in HOFD is Takeshi Kaneshiro's emotinally accessible Jin. I could never really get into Jet Li.) 

One more thing: Visually, of course, HOFD is impressive, but sound has a great deal to do with its success. That bamboo scene works in part because of the way Zhang uses the rustling of the treetops and the whilsting of the bamboo sticks. A lesser director would have overdone it. Zhang hits it just right here.