Posted: 12/21/2000

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

(2000)

by D. Patrick Seitz

The sky’s the limit for Ang Lee’s stunning homage to the martial-arts pulp fiction he enjoyed in his youth.

After having seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I feel a lot like the boy who cried wolf. I’m not one for lukewarm or middle-of-the-road feelings when it comes to the movies I watch. My like or dislike of a particular film is usually pretty emphatic…which puts me in something of a pickle when it comes to how I should go about reviewing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. If I went out of my way to praise Unbreakable and Drunken Master, how on earth am I supposed to convey my deep esteem towards this film—far superior to the duo I just mentioned—without flying headlong into hyperbole?

Then again, maybe a film like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon deserves a bit of hyperbole. In a film where the players hop from rooftop to rooftop with the lightest of steps, in which the fight choreography reduces The Matrix to physical therapy at a convalescent home, and in which one literally forgets that they’re reading subtitled dialogue instead of comprehending it aurally, who am I to shackle my admiration to objective, reasonable statements?

I’m going to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon a million times. It’ll sweep the Oscars. I’m going to name my firstborn child after director Ang (Sense and Sensibility) Lee. I’m going to propose marriage to cast member Zhang Zi-Yi. Yeah, I said it. And I’m glad.

Okay, those statements were nothing if not hyperbolic. But, having gotten them out of my system, I can now say with assurance that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is easily the best movie I’ve seen this year.

As we enter the world of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, we observe legendary Wuxan warrior Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) preparing for retirement from his gory profession. He entrusts his sword—the equally legendary Green Destiny—to his comrade-in-arms, Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), asking her to deliver it to an old friend for safekeeping. Retirement offers Li Mu Bai little solace, though; he still hasn’t avenged his master’s death at the hands of Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei), and honoring the memory of a deceased friend prevents him and Yu Shu Lien from acknowledging their mutual love for one another.

Li Mu Bai’s barely relinquished Green Destiny to its new master when a disguised thief steals it under the cover of night, with Yu Shu Lien in hot pursuit.

And that’s when the magic begins, folks. The battle that follows (choreographed, as were they all, by The Matrix alumni—and legend in his own right—Yuen Wo-Ping) elicited hearty applause from the audience with whom I shared the experience, and, from what I’ve heard, that’s the standard response to it. To put a new twist on the old saying, writing about these fight scenes is like singing about architecture. The participants in the battle leap from rooftop to wall to rooftop, even deigning to let their feet touching the ground once in a while. And, for all the unique takes on the laws of physics, these fantastic fights didn’t seem at all unnatural or contrived. Their grace was validation enough.

The retrieval of Green Destiny is just a portion of what Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has to offer, though. Equally compelling is a plotline involving Jen (Zhang Zi-Yi), the headstrong daughter of the governor who has no desire for a political marriage and would rather live the life of a warrior. She quickly asserts herself as a nearly peerless warrior, and the one who will decide the balance of power between Li Mu Bai and Jade Fox.

There’s so much to love about this movie, but I am hesitant to put especially beloved scenes into context, lest I lessen the surprises in store for the viewers. Thus, I must be elliptical when mentioning the restaurant brawl…the desert courtship…the slight wrinkle underneath Michelle Yeoh’s eyes that contain so much sadness and quiet resignation, just to name a few.

The women make Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon the unforgettable experience it is, so if you figure them to be passive or demure, think again. For a movie in which ass-whuppings are handed out like after-dinner mints at a Halitosis Anonymous meeting, women played a refreshingly integral role in the action. In fact, looking back on the film, I can’t think of a single one-on-one duel between two men. Tradition may bar women from honing their skills at the Wuxan school, but it doesn’t keep them from surpassing and vanquishing their male counterparts. The fights, which could have easily devolved into standard macho posturing if handed over to male characters, are so much more powerful for being played out by the women. In the absence of macho posturing, there is a sense of practically raw, feral emotion to be found in many of the battle scenes.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has something for everyone. It’s a love story. An action film. And Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello like nobody’s business. Take a bunch of guys. Take a date. Take your mom. Heck, take my mom, who hasn’t seen a film in the theater since Apollo 13. If you cannot enjoy this movie, you’ve never loved a film in your life.

D. Patrick Seitz is a Los Angeles-based actor and voiceover artist who would pursue Zhang Zi-Yi from treetop to treetop, too, if gravity allowed for it.

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