A poetic journey of love, self-discovery, self-sacrifice and hard-hitting, weapon-zinging pain-bringing. Auteur-turned-arse-kicker Zhang Yimou labelled Hero a rehearsal for Daggers, but this is no rehash. It's a more accessible, emotive picture: a tragic love story redolent of Romeo And Juliet, combined with the fugitive element of Robin Hood and astonishing, iris-tantalising set-pieces. Less painstakingly crafted than DoP Christopher Doyle's compositions in Hero, Zhao Xiaoding's work in Daggers is no less visually arresting: the title's soaring shivs, the blood in the snow, Zhang Ziyi's silky `bean dance' (okay, `echo game' - whatever).

Also, in ditching Hero's distancing multiple realities, Yimou gives heart to the action. We're clued in early to the characters' duplicity, with Mei (Ziyi), a blind beauty suspected of being embroiled with the underground resistance in 9th-century China, `rescued' by undercover rozzer Jin (Kaneshiro Takeshi). Watching it again, you appreciate the performances that ground the spectacle - the uneasy gestures, awkward glances and fleeting touches that lay the foundations for a formidable house.

DVD Extras:

""I joked that this was a period road movie... Always running"," recalls Ziyi on the commentary - - deftly nailing the movie. Other extras include blah location visits, storyboard/scene comparisons and an entertaining Making Of. But it's really the subtitled commentary from Yimou and Ziyi that you'll return to. Titbits include how the star's curtain-raising sequence was switched from a dance to an action scene at the last minute, with the fight choreographer recalled from holiday, while Ziyi is grateful for her six years of dance training. ""I really feel it was worth it"," she says. "It came in handy for all these martial-arts films"."