Crouching Story, Hidden Vacuum

Rating: 4/10 (22 April 2009)

So I watched this movie again the other day, and as ever I felt a little dirty afterward. Gorgeous to look at, and all those lovely Ang Lee touches making the relationships throb with life. But there's something sore here I can never put my finger on. Dmitry called later on and I asked him what was wrong with this movie, and as usual he had exactly the answer:
"Nothing matters," he said.
And that's it.
Start with the Macguffin: a sword is stolen... that the owner just threw away. Bang. Doesn't matter. Everybody gets all excited about it, runs around getting into spectacular fights over it, when in fact the people who are acting like they care said right at the start that they didn't care. The sword is recovered, and, yes, stolen again. And again everybody acts like that matters. If it didn't matter at the top, it can't matter later, unless new information is introduced. It's not: when Chow Yun-Fat turned his back on his fighting ways, he already knew the bad guy was still out there. Which brings us to:
The oldest, dumbest motif in Shaolin filmdom: the bad guy killed my master. This was a tired excuse back before Bruce Li used it 30 times. A revenge story always sucks because there are only two ways for it to be explored thematically: (1) the vengeance trail is an empty path, which is not news to anybody who's seen a Western or gone on a vengeance trail; (2) the vengeance trail is an honorable pursuit, which is idiotic to anybody who's ever studied Buddhism, or gone on a vengeance trail. This movie chooses to combine the two, which is only slightly less stupid than either one alone. First, we're forced to spend time with a hero who can't see the lack of wisdom in his decisions. Second, we know what he ought to be doing, which is having kids with the Michelle Yeoh. That's a little tragic, and the only part of this story that works dramatically. Too little too late, because for the whole middle of the movie we're not thinking about Chow and Yeoh, we're looking at:
The intrusive ingénue love story, which breaks its own rules by failing to be a love story. The pretty girl is supposed to be in love with the pretty boy. She is supposed to be so in love with him that their love is presented in epic, sweeping visual terms. We in fact spend a good half hour derailing the central (admittedly ridiculous) plot line for a diversion in romantic desert locations, purportedly setting up the great timeless love of these renegade children. Then, when the boyfriend shows up demanding his old flame's affection, she is iffy and pouty. Turns out she'd rather be a Quentin Tarantino heroine, kicking ass and posing. After all that heavy breathing in the desert, she gives him the kiss-off without even a farewell roll in the sand. And when the grown-ups tell him to go wait in the corner, he goes. Along with any credibility the love story might have had.
Which segues into the traditional storyteller's dilemma: what to do with the ingénue. Zhang Ziyi is no problem to look at. The trouble is the script's abuse of her character as a story device. The conceit of a talented but recalcitrant student is an old one, tried and true and moldy and blue. That's not even the problem. It's that the movie can't decide how to use her. Is she a lover? That part's convincing. Is she a warrior? I buy it. Is she a wandering spark, looking for a haystack? Is she a wild horse in need of a rider? Is she ever going to take her shirt off? These are the questions that, even if answered (not all are), are answered erroneously. That she kills her potential master is, again, mildly interesting from a dramatic standing, but, again, it's too little too late. She never took her clothes off, she never really loved the boy, she never really reached her potential. So when she kills herself, the sacrifice is for nothing: there's nobody to save but herself. And now she's dead.
Just like the chances of my ever watching these beautiful, empty fight scenes again. After all, this movie's through-line is that one shouldn't waste the time he's given.