Chinese director Yimou Zhang is no newcomer to the American silver screen. His films, "To Live," "Hero," "Happy Times" and "Raise the Red Lantern," to name just a few, were roundly lauded here for their epic beauty and their charming, earthy stories.

His latest work, "House of Flying Daggers," combines those qualities with the sort of magical swordsmanship that made Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" so popular on these shores.

It is the waning of the Tang Dynasty and the government is barely in control and under attack from a ferocious band of rebels called the House of the Flying Daggers (thanks to their warriors' astonishing deftness with a trio of airborne knives).

A pair of regional policemen, Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Leo (Andy Lau), successfully assassinated the previous leader of the rebels, spending nearly a year getting the job done. Now their superiors want them to kill the successor and is giving them little more than a week to do it.

They hear that a new girl at the local men's club called Mei (Zhang Ziyi) could lead them to the new leader. Mei is blind and beautiful and an exquisite, athletic dancer. Soon the two men discover she's also an able swordswoman.

After arresting her, the two policemen hatch a plot to trick her into leading them to the boss. But will Jin fall in love with her and screw up the plot? Will she fall in love with him and, as a result, fall into the trap? Will Jin's own men kill them both before he can succeed on his mission?

What Jin fails to realize is that enemies are everywhere, even in places where he least expects them.

A sweet love story and a great adventure tale, "House of Flying Daggers" will, in the end, please marital arts fans more than anyone, with its astonishing battle scenes amid open fields, in the sky and in dense bamboo forests.

But, luckily, like "Crouching Tiger," to which it will certainly be oft-compared, "House of Flying Daggers" has depth, with a good story and photography so luminous and beautiful that the film feels as artistic as a Chinese landscape painting.

"House of Flying Dagger" opens Friday, Jan. 14 at Landmark's Oriental Theatre.