#zhao xiaoding

[streamondemand]

'House of Flying Daggers' - grand and glorious romantic martial arts spectacle on Hulu

Zhang Ziyi, Takeshi Kaneshiro, and Andy Lau form the romantic triangle in Zhang Yimou’s grand and glorious romantic martial arts adventure House of Flying Daggers (China, 2004). Xiao Mei (Zhang), a blind courtesan with wicked skills, is an assassin with a revolutionary group trying to overthrow the corrupt emperor. Drinking buddies Jin (Kaneshiro) and Leo (Lau) are royal marshals who plot to…

[nine-frames]

十面埋伏 (Shímiàn máifú -  House of Flying Daggers), 2004

Dir. Zhang Yimou | Writ. Li Feng, Peter Wu, Wang Bin & Zhang Yimou | DOP Zhao Xiaoding

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) was photographed by Xiaoding Zhao. Xiao has 34 cinematography credits from 1992 to 2022. He was Oscar nominated for House of Flying Daggers (2004).

[byneddiedingo]

Zhang Ziyi in House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004)

Cast: Andy Lau, Zhang Ziyi, Takeshi Kaneshiro. Screenplay: Li Feng, Wang Bin, Zhang Yimou. Cinematography: Zhao Xiaoding. Production design: Huo Tingxiao. Film editing: Chen Long. Music: Shigeru Umebayashi.

From the kaleidoscopic color of the Peony Palace at the beginning of the film through the final duel seen through the scrim of a blizzard, House of Flying Daggers is visually extraordinary, fully deserving of its Academy Award nomination for Zhao Xiaoding's cinematography. It tends, however, to be a collection of brilliant set pieces, including a spectacular battle in a bamboo forest, held together by what could be a conventional love triangle -- if only the stories of the three members of the triangle, Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), Leo (Andy Lau), and Mei (Zhang Ziyi ), weren't so extraordinarily complicated. In the story it is 859 C.E., and the police are trying to root out the House of Flying Daggers, a group of Robin Hood-style rebels against the government of the Tang Dynasty. Police captain Leo and his subordinate, Jin, hear that an agent of the Flying Daggers is working incognito at the Peony Palace, a brothel, so they arrest Mei, a blind dancer. But neither Mei nor Leo is exactly who they appear to be, which is unfortunate for Jin, who falls in love with Mei, with fatal consequences. In the end, it's best just to sit back and admire the performances of the three actors, especially Zhang Ziyi, who is truly astonishing in both the action sequences and the dramatic scenes. In addition to Zhao's cinematography, the visual impact of the film depends largely on the work of production designer, Huo Tingxiao, art director Han Zhong, and costume designer Emi Wada. Most of the exterior scenes, with the exception of the bamboo forest, were filmed on location in the Ukrainian Carpathians.

[saturdaynightmatinee]

CALIFICACIÓN PERSONAL: 5 / 10

Título Original: The Great Wall

Año: 2016

Duración: 92 min

País:  China  

Dirección: Zhang Yimou

Guion: Tony Gilroy, Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro. Historia: Max Brooks, Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz

Música: Ramin Djawadi

Fotografía: Stuart Dryburgh, Zhao Xiaoding

Reparto: Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, Jing Tian, Zhang Hanyu, Eddie Peng, Lu Han, Lin Gengxin, Ryan Zheng, Cheney Chen, Huang Xuan, Karry Wang, Vicky Yu, Liu Qiong, Pilou Asbæk

Productora: Coproducción China-Estados Unidos; China Film Group, Le Vision Pictures, Legendary East, Kava Productions, Legendary Pictures, Atlas Entertainment

Género: Action; Adventure; Fantasy

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2034800/

TRAILER:

[absencesrepetees]

cliff walkers (zhang yimou, 2021)

[365days365movies]

January 13, 2021: House of Flying Daggers (2004)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was HUGE. I don’t just mean on this blog, I mean in the United States in 2000 and 2001. If you were alive and aware of movies that year, then you remember people talking about this movie. It was, and is to this day, the highest grossing foreign-language film in the United States. So what does that mean?

It means that Ang Lee wouldn’t be the only wuxia film director to cross the pond. Two years later, a little movie called Hero would be released internationally. That wuxia would eventually become the #3 highest-grossing foreign language movie in the USA. It’]s director was an old hat wuxia director in China, Zhang Yimou.

Yimou’s success on China never translated in the USA, until Hero in 2002. After that, he would release more films in the USA, one of the most recent being...oh. OH. OH NO, The Great Wall starring Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, and Willem Dafoe?!? THAT’S A ZHANG YIMOU MOVIE?

...I mean, Ang Lee made the 2003 Hulk, so I guess nobody’s perfect. Anyway, House of Flying Daggers.

Zhang Ziyi’s back! This is another critically acclaimed movie, but wasn’t nearly as popular in the USA. It was nominated for one Academy Award, for Best Cinematography, but it lost to The Aviator. I’ll talk about that one in the future the way of the future the way of the future the way of the future.

But OK, enough introduction, IT’S WUXIA TIME WOOO SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

The House of Flying Daggers is a Robin Hood organization, stealing from the wealthy and giving to the disenfranchised in a particularly poor area and time period in China. Their biggest enemies, as you’d expect from a Robin Hood group, are the police, who are conspiring to take down their leader within ten days, whomever they may be.

One of these policeman is Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), who goes to the Peony Pavilion, an “entertainment house” full of beautiful women. See, the leader’s daughter is rumored to be working there as a new showgirl.

This is the blind dancer Mei (Zhang Ziyi), who’s questioned awkwardly by the VERY drunk Jin. She dances and sings for him, as requested. Good time to mention something that I didn’t mention yesterday: Zhang Ziyi has no martial arts background prior to her film career. Instead, her background is in dance! She learned fight choreography in that film the same way she learned dance choreography. So, it’s neat to see her return to her roots.

It’s less neat to see Jin straight-up sexually assault her and get arrested by the cops. So, y’know, ups and downs there. To prevent from getting arrested herself, Mei accepts the offer to play a game called “Echo.” This is prompted by another police officer, Leo (Andy Lau). He, uh...throws beans at a circle of drums, and she responds by hitting the drums with her sleeves. Yeah. Sounds dumb, right? Well, check out how it looks.

This is a very different movie, as compared to CTHD. And yeah, I’m only 15 minutes in, but the choreography is far more artistically flourished. Yeah. I said that as compared to CTHD. Only time will tell, but this full dance sequence is definitely interesting to watch.

Anyway, as you can see above, it ends once Mei grabs the captain’s sword with her sleeve ribbons, and challenges him to a duel. She also TOTALLY blows her cover as a sympathizer to the House of Flying Daggers, and the two fight.

This fight does NOT go well for her, and she’s arrested. Also, it would seem that the drunken display by Jin was actually just a ruse, meant to get her to play the game and reveal herself. Seems...complicated, but it got result, I guess? Anyway, they threaten her with torture (like you do), unless she gives them information of the new leader of the House of Fly...HoFD. There. If CTHD gets an acronym, so does this.

Suddenly, though, a ninja appears and sets Mei free, fighting off the guards. Said ninja reveals himself as...Jin? They refamiliarize themselves.

Very refamiliar.

Anyway, the soldiers are indeed approaching, and Mei and Jin go on the run. The policemen chase them down on horses, and Mei takes down three horses and the guys riding them...with a scabbard. By herself. Badass.

That’s followed by her taking on four armed men at once, although this round doesn’t go nearly as well.

Luckily for her, however, Jin arrives in the nick of time to save her. We get this VERY cool POV arrow shot:

And the two leave. HOWEVER, the policeman ALL get up at the end, which means...Jin’s lying about all of this, huh? It’s a ruse to find to location of the HoFD, using Mei as an unwitting guide. Oof. Liar revealed plot set-up, huh? If that’s the case...I’ll get into that more later.

Jin leaves a message for his fellows, while Mei bathes and puts on men’s clothes provided by Jin, as a disguise. 

It’s at this point that Jin decides to go FULL creep again, and GODDAMN is it not working for me. It is...UNCOMFORTABLE, knowing what we know about Jin. And yet, despite that information...

It’s working for Mei. Yeah, they make out. Mei does say that it’s too soon, and that she doesn’t quite trust him that much yet...but they definitely made out there for a hot sec. It was...yup.

We get a reminder the Jin’s kind of an emotionally manipulative asshole as he meets with Leo, who warns her not to “fall for her.” So. It IS one of these stories, huh? We’ll see how it goes, but...yeah, not digging the love story so far.

And yet, as I say that, there goes Jin, falling in love with her. Soldiers consistently follow them wherever they go. Looks like the plan is backfiring, as soldiers who aren’t one of Jim’s cohorts believe that he’s a member of the HoFD, having broke Mei out of jail and all. So they attack them in earnest, even injuring Jin somewhat.

And that’s when Mei brings out the dagger. The Flying Dagger. THE HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGER.

I tell ya...that’s cool. Might be a CGI house of flying dagger (LOT of CGI in this movie, by the way, and none of it is technically...good), but I love it. The two fight off the soldiers in the field using the house of flying daggers and arrows, but reinforcements arrive. The two fight them in a sequence that’s more dance than ight. And it’s pretty cool. But they’re soon outnumbered.

Until...some wooden dowels come out of NOWHERE, impaling them in the neck and taking them down. Having survived, the two rest in the field, pondering where the dowels came from. And, of course, making out.

Although, this time, Mei starts it, and Jin refuses. He leaves, at her urging, and meets with Leo. Turns out the General sent the soldiers in the field, and is sending more to kill Mei AND Jin. And, as a note, Jin just KILLED some of those guys, as did Mei. Arrow boys from earlier lived, since it was a set-up for Mei. But, no, Jin actually has to kill the soldiers coming up.

That’s when he realizes that the General doesn’t care about him, at ALL, and he’s willing to shed the blood of his men and of Jin to get his goals met. And Jin...quits. Jin STRAIGHT UP quits, and returns to Mei. They get into a spat, and Mei leaves. And she goes to...

A bamboo forest. Thank you, China, for loving bamboo so much in these movies, because this sequence is gorgeous. I tell you, these movies do real well with the bamboo green color. Gorgeous.

The soldiers ambush Mei there, but Jin’s caught up, and he helps fight them off. Some awesome bamboo tricks (and sounds, by the way, real neat sounds here), more object-throwing (including a lot of using the bamboo stalks as weapons, which is SUPER FUCKIN’ COOL), and some gorgeous cinematography though the forest. Real talk, this scene made the movie for me. So far, anyway. We even get a BADASS bamboo spike trap! And it’s here that our pair is caught.

AND THEN

IT’S THE HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS FUCK YEAH

Looks like the madam of the entertainer’s house actually is the head of the HoFD, once again upholding the tradition of badass women of wuxia that we’ve seen in LITERALLY ALL THREE of these movies.

The leader asks if Jin likes Mei, and would consider marrying her. It’s far too soon for Jin, and he’s formally captured by the HoFD. They knew about his and Leo’s plan, and drag a captured Leo in as well. AND, AND...MEI’S NOT BLIND, or the daughter of the leader!!! Yeah! She’s been faking the whole movie! HA! Liar revealed indeed!

Didn’t see that one coming! Mei’s just a normal anti-governmentrevolutionary, and Jin’s now just a prisoner alongside Leo. But another twist, as this isn’t the actual leader of the HoFD. Leo reveals this; and how does he know that? LEO...IS A GODDAMN MOLE IN THE GOVERNMENT!!! WHAT????? YES! Leo’s a member of the HoFD, and he was planted three years ago to spy on the cops! And...AND...HE’S MEI’S FIANCEE!! WHAT IN THE SHIT?!?

OH I AM FULLY INVESTED. What the hell else is gonna happen? How about a game of Echo?

Yeah, that scene from earlier? No wonder it was a dance! It was the reunion between two lovers, long since parted! Holy shit, THIS is a romance I can fully get behind! But...can Mei? Because she certainly isn’t feeling it as much as Leo is...

Yup. Looks like she fell in love with Jin after all. Uh oh. BIG UH OH. And there goes my support of their romance, as Leo tries to rape Mei. Nia, the leader, ain’t having it, and throws a dagger into Jin’s back. He goes back to spy on the cops, but not before shaming Mei. Oof. I take it back. 

And now, Mei’s been told to kill Jin. I’m sure that’s gonna happen.

YUP

Well, after they have Field Sex (probably better than CTHD’s Cave Sex, let’s be honest), they decide to go their separate ways, becoming fated lovers on two separate sides. But Mei has second thoughts, and goes back.

Somebody else comes back, too.

YIKES, LEO! Yeah, he kills her right there in the field, blaming her for making him kill her! YIKES, LEO!!! I take it back, you’re a DICK.

Jin ALSO comes back for Mei, and finds Leo instead. A pissed-off Leo reveals himself to Jin, and the two engage in a sword battle for Mei. And then...autumn turns to winter.

As the army encroaches on the HoFD in the bamboo forest, two former friends shed blood amongst the snow. Their fight...their fight is brutal. The choreography may not be the fanciest...but it is insanely and viciously emotional. Blood and snow, man. Blood and snow.

Also, hey, guess who’s alive after all! Mei gets up, despite the DAGGER IN HER CHEST STILL. She asks Leo to let Jin go, or she’ll USE THE DAGGER IN HER CHEST TO KILL HIM. METAL. Obviously, that’ll actually kill her, So Jin asks her not to do it. But it doesn’t matter in the end.

Mei throws her dagger to intercept Leo’s. And Leo...never throws his dagger..

Leo leaves. Mei dies. Jin cries and sings their song.

A rare beauty in the North. She’s the finest lady on earth. A glance from her, the whole city goes down. A second glance leaves the nation in ruins. There exists no city or nation that has been more cherished than a beauty like this. A rare beauty in the North. She’s the finest lady on earth. A glance from her, the whole city goes down. A second glance leaves the nation in ruins. There exists no city or nation that has been more cherished than a beauty like this.

And we never see what happens to the...House of Flying Daggers.

WHOOF. Epilogue soon.

[ryanmeft]

Movie Review: Shadow

Zhang Yimou has taken the sort of plot that could occupy an entire TV mini-series and effectively told it in 116 minutes, replete with visual splendour and larger-than-life heroics which he somehow manages to balance with near-perfect grace. Like other films in the Wuxia genre, the specifics can be hard to follow, and I sometimes got lost on exactly who was supposed to marry, fight, mimic, and impress who. Things come full circle in the end, and along the way there’s more than enough massive ships rolling through tiny canals and battles with spinning bladed umbrellas to keep our eyes mesmerized.

In an indeterminate time and place, two kingdoms are in an uncomfortable stalemate. Pei seems to be a largely indoor kingdom, consisting of halls and courts done in the graytone colors of Yin and Yang. The cowardly and power-hungry King Peiliang (Zheng Kai) has an agreement with the militaristic kingdom of Yang, situated among mountains facing the ocean. Pei must have some wilderness and Yang must have courts and buildings, but Yimou and cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding have chosen the sterile, largely sunless halls of Pei to contrast with the open air latitudes of Yang for stylistic reasons. Those halls represent the paranoia of the crooked king, compared to the more straight-forward style of Yang’s leading general, Yang Cang (Hu Jun).

Like all bullies, Peiliang is weaker than he knows. His top swordsman and right-hand man Ziyu (Deng Chao) has challenged Cang to a duel to redeem his honor from an earlier defeat. This duel will also mean war between the kingdoms, and Peiliang fears his pampered lifestyle and power will be crushed by the stronger rival kingdom. Secretly, that is what Ziyu wants---or at least, the real Ziyu does. In a rather labyrinthine plot, the man we first see, Jingzhou, has been abducted at a young age and trained to mirror Ziyu, forced into slavery in the event Ziyu becomes injured. This he has done, and now hides recuperating in a concealed cave, his hair a bedraggled mess, his eyes those of an animal more than a man. He plots to overthrow the kingdom and take the throne. This is made easier when the king generates outrage by attempting to sell his sister (Guan Xiaotong) to Yang to ensure his own power.

This plot is, honestly, very convoluted, and you may find your eyes crossing after a while. No matter: as long as you’ve got the basics, you’re fine, because the movie is less about story and more about panache. From Peiliang’s first appearance, maniacally demanding that Ziyu/Jingzhou and Ziyu’s tired wife Xiao (Sun Li) perform music just so he can mock them for it, we know Yimou, as usual, is not dealing in half measures. Characters are painted in broad strokes and perform more like they are on stage than on screen. Peiliang is a villain worthy of a grand RPG: he struts, peacocks and gloats, inflicting his will on everyone in a desperate attempt to deny his own weakness. The real Ziyu is little better, as he takes out his anger at his physical decay on the man he abducted, forcing him to train constantly in order to do his bidding. The two baddies are absolutely detestable, in the grandstanding way of great screen antagonists. The story, co-written by Wei Li, is based on real people from 2nd and 3rd century to Japan, but it is hard to believe anyone was ever this magnetically flamboyant in real life.

Other characters are more along the lines of archetypes. Jingzhou and Xiao, in particular, are not very deep, so interest in them must be sustained through action. This has been accomplished through a mixture of special effects, choreography and cinematography. It is not possible, or at least it is highly dangerous, to physically do or create some of the things we see. The battle that is the centerpiece of the film involves weaponized umbrellas that protrude razor blades which spin like wheels, and the duel is surrounded by a larger battle with multiple competing forces and interests. It begins as a ship squeezes between the tight cliffs of Yang (the ship is conveniently designed to be exactly the right size), with Jingzhou waiting on top a large Yin-Yang emblem, and eventually expands to involve a massive charge in the gray rain down city streets. There are moments that seem more like something out of Mortal Kombat than real warfare, including a ridiculously fantastic scene of soldiers sliding down a street behind their knife-umbrellas. It hovers just this side of nonsense, in a good way. This is a bleak world, with muted colors and gray skies, and a little bit of over-the-top being injected creates an interesting contrast with the serious plot.

It could be said that if you’ve seen one film in this genre, you’ve seen them all, but that’s not quite right. Yes, there will always be insane stunt choreography and almost-too-convoluted plots, but Yimou is such an inventive artist that he could copy the same plot every time and find new and fascinating ways to show it to us, and we might never tire of it. In an age where lazy CGI handles, it seems, nearly everything, simply having someone use it and their natural visual skill to create something that feels artistic is more than enough of a treat to recommend repeated helpings.

Verdict: Highly Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

 You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

 Or his tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

 All images are property of the people what own the movie.

[facesofcinema]

The Great Wall (2016)

[stillsmybeatingheart]

[thewailign]

House of Flying Daggers (2004)

Director: Yimou Zhang

Cinematographer: Xiaoding Zhao

[calledeitaca]

135 planos que harán que recuperes la fe en el cine

Un maravilloso vídeo ensayo de hace diez años que en su momento se hizo viral. En el verano de 2012, Flavorwire solicitó a sus lectores que sugirieran aquellas películas que consideraban eran las mejores de la historia del cine. El resultado, un montaje que la revista de cultura editó con los títulos propuestos por sus lectores y que rinde un hermoso homenaje al séptimo arte. Si eres amante del cine, seguro que disfrutarás de los magníficos ocho minutos que dura el montaje de Flavorwire. Las películas de las que se han extraído los planos, en orden de aparición:

Man with a Movie Camera (Mikhail Kaufman), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Roger Deakins), Baraka (Ron Fricke), Koyaanisqatsi (Ron Fricke), Days of Heaven (Nestor Almendros), Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (Takao Saito, Shoji Ueda), What Dreams May Come (Eduardo Serra), Legends of the Fall (John Toll), Lawrence of Arabia (Freddie Young), El Topo (Rafael Corkidi), La Dolce Vita (Otello Martelli), The Tree of Life (Emmanuel Lubezki), Daughters of the Dust (Arthur Jafa), Chinatown (John A. Alonzo), Hero (Christopher Doyle), Kagemusha (Takao Saito, Shoji Ueda), The Night of the Hunter (Stanley Cortez), Ugetsu (Kazuo Miyagawa), Songs from the Second Floor (Istvan Borbas, Jesper Klevenas, Robert Komarek), The Black Stallion (Caleb Deschanel), Vertigo (Robert Burks), Manhattan (Gordon Willis), Apocalypse Now (Vittorio Storaro), Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Gonzalo F. Berridi), The Duellists (Frank Tidy), Powaqqatsi (Graham Berry, Leonidas Zourdoumis), Ran (Asakazu Nakai, Takao Saito, Shoji Ueda), Bombay Beach (Alma Har’el), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Geoffrey Unsworth), The Thin Red Line (John Toll), Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Peter Zeitlinger), The New World (Emmanuel Lubezki), Solaris (Vadim Yusov), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Janusz Kaminksi), I Am Love (Yorick Le Saux), A Matter of Life and Death (Jack Cardiff), Onibaba (Kiyomi Kuroda), Blue Velvet (Frederick Elmes), No Country for Old Men (Roger Deakins), I Am Cuba (Sergei Urusevsky), The Fountain (Matthew Libatique), There Will be Blood (Robert Elswitt), The Human Condition (Yoshio Miyajima), The Proposition (Benoit Delhomme), Raise the Red Lantern (Lun Yang, Fei Zhao), The Godfather Part II (Gordon Willis), 2046 (Christopher Doyle, Pung-Leung Kwan), Beauty and the Beast (Henri Alekan), Melancholia, (Manuel Alberto Claro), Road to Perdition (Conrad L. Hall), Alexander Nevsky (Eduard Tisse), Sunrise (Charles Rosher, Karl Struss), Blade Runner (Jordan Cronenweth), Citizen Kane (Gregg Toland), House of Flying Daggers (Xiaoding Zhao), Wings of Desire (Henri Alekan), Atonement (Seamus McGarvey), The Last Emperor (Vittorio Storaro), Before Night Falls (Xavier Perez Grobet, Guillermo Rosas), The Last Picture Show (Robert Surtees), The Red Shoes (Jack Cardiff), Down by Law (Robby Müller), Amelie (Bruno Delbonnel), Chungking Express (Christopher Doyle, Wai-keung Lau), Children of Men (Emmanuel Lubezki), Black Orpheus (Jean Bourgoin), The Leopard (Giuseppe Rotunno), The Age of Innocence (Michael Ballhaus), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Frank Griebe), Raging Bull (Michael Chapman), The Fall (Colin Watkinson), The Pillow Book (Sacha Vierny), Martha Marcy May Marlene (Jody Lee Lipes), Nosferatu the Vampyre (Jorg Schmidt-Reitwein), The Third Man (Robert Krasker), Good Night and Good Luck (Robert Elswitt), The Scarlet Empress (Bert Glennon), The Man Who Wasn’t There (Roger Deakins), Talk to Her (Javier Aguirresarobe), In The Mood for Love (Christopher Doyle, Pung-Leung Kwan, Ping Bin Lee), The Man Who Cried (Sacha Vierny), Santa Sangre (Daniele Nannuzzi), The Passion of Joan of Arc (Rudolph Maté), In Cold Blood (Conrad L. Hall), 8 ½ (Gianni Di Venanzo), Brazil (Roger Pratt).

_________________ Fuente: Flavorwire.

[nine-frames]

The Great Wall (長城), 2016.

Dir. Zhang Yimou | Writ. Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro & Tony Gilroy | DOP Stuart Dryburgh & Zhao Xiaoding

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

House of Flying Daggers (2004) was photographed by Xiaoding Zhao. Xiao was Oscar nominated for his cinematography. This is his second honorable mention, after Curse of the Golden Flower.

[pian-ran]

I hope that in three lifetimes and in three worlds, there will be ten miles of peach blossoms forever.

ONCE UPON A TIME | 三生三世十里桃花 2017 | dir. Zhao Xiaoding & Anthony LaMolinara

[lehdenlaulu]

For Sleepover Saturday, could you list your top five films with amazing cinematography? Thank you!

Oooh yess certainly! These are not in any specific order, but here goes:

House of Flying Daggers (2004, dir. Zhang Yimou, DP Zhao Xiaoding)

Hero (2002, dir. Zhang Yimou, DP Christopher Doyle)

Pride and Prejudice (2005, dir. Joe Wright, DP Roman Osin)

Gravity (2013, dir. Alfonso Cuarón, DP Emmanuel Lubezki)

Star Wars: Rogue One (2016, dir. Gareth Edwards, DP Greig Fraser)

I also feel like I should give a special shoutout to Dariusz Wolski’s work with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies because it’s what really ignited my spark of passion for cinematography.

[Talk to me?]