Thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable fantasy, martial arts film made to high standards in many regards.

Rating: 10/10 (19 March 2018)

One film critic said of, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: "it's not really a fight film, it's a dance film". The expertly and beautifully choreographed, filmed and edited action scenes in this film are indeed graceful and most pleasing to watch. This film masterfully combines drama and romance in a fantasy martial arts period film. It's a highly imaginative film which successfully combines a variety of film genres together. This Asian film from Taiwanese director Ang Lee received a huge 11 Academy Award / Oscar nominations, the most ever for a foreign language film. From my perspective, everything works, and is done to high standards in this film. Directing, writing, cinematography, film editing, choreography, art direction, costumes, makeup and music score. There is a emotional resonance in this film, rarely done so well in the action genre. The martial arts fighting scenes are impressive to experience for how skillful they are thought out and executed. Ang Lee said he made this film out of his boyhood fantasies, growing up with traditional martial arts action films.