Have you ever been so cold you thought your heart would just stop beating? That your massive bodily shivering might somehow trigger an avalanche from hundreds of miles away? These were my thoughts as I walked the block and a half through the biting cold to Liberty Hall for the movie last night. Man, it was cold. But I really wanted to see this movie, so I endured it, when I might just as easily have been cuddled up at home with a mug of hot chocolate and a brand-new DVD of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I'm not sorry I went, but the movie was not exactly what I expected.

Directed by Yimou Zhang (who brought you Hero with Jet Li), House of Flying Daggers is gorgeous, lush, violent, sensuous, dramatic, heart-breaking . . . and wildly confusing.

The film takes place near the end of the Tang Dynasty in China, about 690 A.D. The government is corrupt (hey, what do you know?), and a scrappy insurgent group called The House of Flying Daggers does the Robin Hood thing by stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Enter Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a showgirl in a brothel called the Peony Pavilion. She is blind, but she is an extremely beautiful and talented dancer. The police suspect that she is also the daughter of the old leader of the House of Flying Daggers (who was assassinated); therefore, government officer Leo (Andy Lau) sets up an elaborate trap to capture her, sending fellow policeman Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) to conquer her scruples and persuade her to lead him to the House. Jin is ridiculously chiseled, and he prides himself on being like his name (Jin means "wind"), elusive and untameable. I'm sure you can see where this is going. However, the romance doesn't unfold quite the way you would imagine. In fact, I'm not sure it unfolds at all, but that's another matter, which I'll get to in a minute.

Visual indulgence is what this film seems to be all about. In particular, Yimou Zhang makes incredible use of color. There are magnificent autumn landscapes in rich reds and golds, and once we finally see the homestead of the eponymous group, everything is vibrant green. This movie also contains some of the coolest martial arts scenes I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot. The fight scenes are choreographed with the same delicacy and skill that is applied to the dances, like the beautifully dramatic "echo game," in which our heroine stands amid a circle of drums and flings her incredibly long, fluid sleeves outward in order to play their inked surfaces. Whenever the Flying Daggers group shows up, they fling their weapons in the loveliest configurations you can imagine (and with supernatural aim, no less). Whether it's an exquisite dance, or an artful drip of blood snaking down a brocade vest, everything in this movie is gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous.

For those who haven't seen Hero and want something to compare it with, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the closest semi-mainstream thing you'll find to the style of this movie. The characters are not bound by gravity while they're fighting; they can leap gracefully to the top of a bamboo tree or execute twenty damaging kicks to their opponent's chest before hitting the ground. It's super cool.

Back to matters of narrative, though. There are more plot twists than at Agatha Christie's donut shop (whatever that means). Allegiances are never what you think they are, and there are so many layers of deception it makes your head spin. There's a lot of, "but wait, wasn't he working for that other guy?" You don't really know who to throw your emotional support behind—who to root for, or who to root against. You don't know what anyone's motive is. You feel sorry for each of the primary characters in turn. That is, until they all prove themselves to be cold and calculating, and then you can never quite buy it when they're being sincere. Do Jin and Mei really love each other? Does Mei still love that other dude? Who knows? It's okay for the characters to keep this stuff from one another, but it'd be swell if the director would at least clue the audience in. (Some of us are slow-witted Americans—throw us a bone, here!) But nothing could equal my confusion during the final scene. Jin and Leo go mano a mano in a sword fight that is both breathtaking and reminiscent of ancient mythical stories like the Epic of Gilgamesh. Seasons change mid-battle, and one of the characters dies more than once. It's dreamy and lovely, like an opium dream. (At least that's how I imagine opium dreams would be—don't call for an intervention just yet.) But what is the logic behind any of it? Why does Mei fling the dagger at that tree? How does Jin survive when he's been carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey? And when did Leo turn into every male character on the Lifetime network?

There are no answers for these questions. Only lots of sound and fury, signifying . . . well, not exactly nothing. . . . but who knows what, really? House of Flying Daggers is an aesthetic adventure, and thus belongs to the same cinematic family as Fantasia and Dali and Bunuel's surreal masterpiece, Un Chien Andalou. (There is no meaning behind that sliced eyeball; it's only there to elicit a visceral reaction.) If you go into HoFD without expectations—or better yet, with the expectation of simply being carried along on the elusive, untameable wind—you won't be disappointed.

But for God's sake put on some long underwear before you go to the theater. I made that mistake last night, and now I have frostbite on 90% of my body.