For the past two weeks I chose to watch Terminator(1984) and The House of Flying Daggers(2004). Both films have some similarities but are very unlike from each other. The Terminator revolves around guns, violence, and the main goal is to survive. I chose this movie because it is the first out of many sequels and I remember bits and pieces of it as a kid. As for The House of Flying Daggers the movie is mainly about a secret organization that many people are trying to eliminate, and along the way people change. I chose this film because it had an interesting story line and I wanted to see how it concluded.
The Terminator, directed by James Cameron, is a movie about the future. Robots and humans are at war and to stop the humans from resisting the robots send a terminator to kill the mother of John Connor, who leads the resistance. The humans find out about this and decide to send one of their best soldier to protect Sarah Connor. In a Mental Floss article it explains the storyline of the film and talks about the actor who plays Sarah, Linda Hamilton. The character Sarah was the damsel in distress in the first movie, then in the second movie she could clearly take care of herself. The article tells us about how the actress prepares for her roles and what she changed for the second movie. At which the actress started a relationship with the director, James Cameron.
Cameron has done many things in his career such as directing Titanic, Aliens, and Terminator. An article by James Kendrick states that the Titanic was one of the most expensive films ever made, and it went six months over schedule. But in the end the movie made $1.1 billion, and attracted many people. Cameron’s filming style is mainly ‘Hollywood’ rather than political or radical. Most of the genres he directs in are science fiction, action-adventure, horror, and historical drama.
The House of Flying Daggers, directed by Zhang Yimou, is a movie about a fight to keep control over China and the Tang Dynasty is losing to a rebel group. This group steals from the wealthy and give to the poor. Two police men investigate in a dancer who is the supposed daughter of a dead rebel group leader. They both end up falling in love with her and that leads to more conflict. In an article by Sense of Cinema it talks about the main storyline and how there’s a deeper meaning in the characters. It also mentions the director’s, Yimou, career and how it reflects on this film.
Both films have a lot of action and a somewhat sad ending. The Terminator had more scenes with violence, and involved machinery, while the House of Flying Daggers had nature scenes and simple weapons. Terminator was about the future technology taking over humanity and the answer to winning the war is in the past. The movie takes place in a large, crowed city, and the main objective is to save Sarah Connor so the humans still have a chance to defeat the robots. And at the end of the film the characters mention a storm, which symbolizes that there is more to come. As for the House of Flying Daggers the government is trying to take down a rebel group that is trying to do good. When the police get a lead about the group they trick a member of the rebel group into leading them to the group. In doing so two police men fall in love with the member and are willing to do anything for her. Most of the film is shot in forests and meadows and involves a lot of nature. Towards the end of the movie it started to snow making it more dramatic and symbolizing sadness.
Nice essay. It seems like the action film was important for 20 years, but international influences came in, and the genre was strong enough that very successful films could have a little bit of social commentary and somewhat downbeat endings.
Something you might look into is: Zhang Yimou’s political problems in China.
Basically, he made other films that were seen as critical of the government, and one (TO LIVE) was banned for many years. So in FLYING DAGGERS Yimou is surely using a setting in the distant past to make a political comment without being censored. He’s also using a much more popular genre. (TO LIVE was an historical epic.)
So in other societies the action genre can serve as camouflage for more repressive societies.
Of course, in the U.S. we don’t have censorship: it’s just that you can fail commercially if your movie is too socially critical. TERMINATOR has a bit of social criticism: computers may one day take over. But of course that was already seen in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and it’s not like computers will avoid buying tickets….
I also watched THE TERMINATOR and I also wrote about Linda Hamilton. She was a role model because at the time that the film was released, very few female actors had lead roles in action movies. I’m probably going to mention this is my final essay, maybe you should as well.
I like your blog post. Your summarizations give a great visual as to how the movies were made. The biggest comparison I see here is that both movies revolve around a female. These movies were perfect to use. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE sort of went with this concept because at the end of the film, a female was fighting for her life to survive (based around a woman).
I like how you took different genres and found a way to gather similarities. It seems like these films could assist in an essay about female roles in film or an essay about movies made to make a statement verses movies made to make money. Nice post!