Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

WARNING!! SPOILERS BELOW!!!

I think that "Crouching Tiger" is a great film, with great fights - but it doesn't deserve all the critical and commercial acclaim it's enjoyed. OK, it has great scenery, but the film is flawed in many ways. First off, the cast. Michelle Yeoh was an inspired choice, and she played her role as well as one would expect from her; the fights she appears in are the best in the film, and her acting is superb. Zhang Ziyi (sp?), however, is where it starts to go wrong. She seems just a little too young and "pouty" to be believable in her role - she acts in a way that lends itself more to a typical female role in a Jackie Chan movie than the supposedly "strong woman" role she was given in "Crouching Tiger". As for Chow Yun-Fat - he is a great actor. But he can't fight. This is something Ang Lee just can't disguise, and to be fair he doesn't even seem to be trying. To make matters worse, he is cast as the "sword master" and he obviously possesses no skill with a sword whatsoever. To be blunt, he is comletely wrong for the role. Secondly, there's the overrated scenery. Yes, it's beautiful and expensive - but it can't carry a movie alone. No amount of sweeping deserts etc etc can disguise the flaws in the movie. The action is good in places, but Ang Lee seems to film too close to the fighters, so soemtimes it's hard to know what's going on. I also thought the ending was lame. Zhang Ziyi jumped off the cliff and supposedly dies - but she can fly. Chow Yun-Fat said he had only one breath left - and proceeded to spout a whole bunch of contrived, cliched lines that would take far more than just the one breath to say. In short, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is an OK movie. But be warned that it's also not as great as everyone says it is.

This movie is excellent, I never thougth that a martial arts movie could render such warmth amids seemenly impossible acts. The special effects are so real that one forgets it is a film, and wonders back to childhood and dreams of emulating SUperman (at least I had them!). The acting is supreme, even if you have to read the subtitles you can hear the intensity of the actors, and the characterization, still borrowing from the classic school of chinese theatre (the usage of archetipical tones ad mmovements for certain charaters like the hero, anti-hero and villain). The filmography is lovely and truly amazing, a sounding succes in my view. Don't expect the depths of Howards End or such, the subject is far more ligther yet amusing. That lovely young girl is a gem (and pretty too!) can't wait until she learns English and does more movies.