Why do I love this movie so much?

Rating: Null/10 (10 February 2001)

CTHD is probably the best movie I've ever seen. This is one of those movies that truly grabs you're heart. After walking out of that theater, I already committed myself on seeing it again. This movie contains so much symbolism and I believe it takes more than viewing it once to appreciate the beauty of this masterpiece. I must admit I never felt this way about a movie before. To me, it feels like any other movie that I will watch in the future after seeing CTHD will totally suck (hehe). Everything in the movie was just perfect; superb cinematography, magnificent choreography, well casted, awesome soundtrack (I wanted to cry after hearing the song played at the end), breathtaking scenery, a great director (Ang Lee), and a well-written plot. Basically a wonderful love/romance/trust/betrayal/justice/revenge foreign film.
I overheard some of my classmate's comments on CTHD. Some believe that the subtitles were boring, hard to watch, a hassle to read and made the movie stupid. Well this is what I had to say for them. "First of all, how slow do you read? I mean they tried to keep the sentences to 1 or 2 so it's easy for people to read, and they also show the subtitle ahead of time. If CTHD was dubbed in English, well that would just ruin the movie. I really think it was a good idea to keep the movie in Mandarin to keep its uniqueness. Wouldn't the movie look like one of those old Chinese movies where they talk and the words come out a minute later? If the movie was also dubbed, the actor's tone of voice and expressions of the words will change, and will lose their significance in the movie. The subtitles were poetry themselves, and some words in Mandarin can't be accurately translated in English. For example, a word in Mandarin can sound so engaging, while in English it's just like an ordinary word".
Many may also believe that the "flying" was so unrealistic and the fighting scenes were so stupid that people laughed. Well how about X-Men, Superman, Batman, Matrix, they didn't complain about the flying on those movie did they? All of these Hollywood movies are fantasies and we accept that. But why is it when Chinese makes their version of a fantasy movie (that includes flying) people criticize it? I believe these people should open up their selves to seeing idea from different culture. Because this movie is not from "Hollywood", you can't assume that it's stupid. I've read that audience from some theater laughed at the fighting scenes. I have no idea why, but my only conclusion is that they probably haven't been exposed to any sort of martial arts, and they probably think that those fighting scenes were a chicken dance. The fighting choreography in this movie is superb. I've seen so many martial arts movie, but not as superior as this one.
This movie is so good and was definitely worth every bit of the 7 bucks that I paid, and perhaps another 7 bucks for another viewing. It only happens once in a great while, where a movie can just grab you and just wont let you go, and CTHD can absolutely do that. Anyways, if you haven't seen this movie go see it, and if you had, go see it again!