House of Flying Daggers—Main characters

Main characters need to be memorized and I will test them. (Remember the "all about love" rule!) We need to do these basics to quickly master story lines so we can get to deeper issues and to give us a common vocabulary as we discuss.

Main actors

Jin / Wind and Leo (the two men) and Xiao Mei ("Mei" in the subtitles—means "little sister" or "girl"). Nia is the female leader of the Flying Daggers.

Some students have had difficulty remembering which one is Jin and which one is Leo and it is very important to keep them straight in order to follow the story line. Jin has the long sideburns and the slightly darker eyebrows and is the more sensual or romantic in his outward behavior.

Leo ➤ Jin ➤

• Jin is played by a half-Taiwanese / half-Japanese actor, KANESHIRO Takeshi
• Leo is played by LAU Andy (born in Hong Kong)
• Xiao Mei is played by ZHANG Zhiyi (born in Beijing)

Also, Anita Mui (Hong Kong singer) was involved in the project but died suddenly just before her scenes were filmed. The script was rewritten rather than find a replacement. This has no doubt affected the romantic story line.