Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi Creates Original Score for House of Flying Daggers

12/07/2004 11:09AM

New York City, USA - Japanese musician Shigeru Umebayashi has composed the music for House Of Flying Daggers, a Sony Pictures Classics release starring Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero), Andy Lau (Internal Affairs) and Japanese-Taiwanese star Takeshi Kaneshiro. The release film's original soundtrack, on Sony Classics, will coincide with the film’s inauguration.

"Lovers" - the end-title song from House of Flying Daggers, with music and lyrics by Umebayashi - is sung on the soundtrack by the American soprano Kathleen Battle. One of the most acclaimed singers of her day, Battle has recorded extensively in the classical and crossover repertoire for Sony Classical. This marks her first appearance on a film soundtrack.

Once the leader of Japan's legendary new-wave rock band EX, composer Shigeru Umebayashi began scoring films in 1985 when the band broke up. He has more than 40 Japanese and Chinese films to his credit and is perhaps best known in the West for his score for director Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love (2001). Umebayashi is also scoring Wong Kar-Wai's long-awaited 2046, scheduled for release this year.

The director of House Of Flying Daggers is Zhang Yimou (China), well known for his his previous work in Raise the Red Lantern, Ju Dou, and Red Sorghum.

Set in China in 859 A.D., in the declining days of the enlightened but now corrupted Tang dynasty, House of Flying Daggers is "a love story wrapped inside of an action film," Zhang says.

Two deputies - Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) - are sent to find the mysterious leader of the revolutionary alliance called the House of Flying Daggers, and their suspicions lead them to the beautiful Mei, a blind dancer at the Peony Pavilion. No one is quite who they seem to be in the intrigue that follows, complicated by the fact the Jin and Mei fall passionately in love despite divided loyalties, in the midst of a furious showdown between opposing forces.

[Buy House of Flying Daggers now].

World Music Central
http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/article.php/20041207110916250