Fantasy, not reality.

Rating: Null/10 (11 February 2003)

Ang Lee offers us Crouching Tiger not as something we should compare to reality, or to what is humanly possible, but as a piece of art, a legend of physical and philosophical adventure. It is easy to dismiss this film as unrealistic and too unbelievable to be truly appreciated and worthy of repute. But such critics would be missing the point of this film -- it's about beauty, fine art, philosophy, and adventure without connection to the world we live in now. So when some worthless member of the audience grumbles disgustedly about how floating and flying from housetop to housetop is completely cheesy and unreal, he also is missing the point of the film and should obviously be back home, playing his beloved Tekken or something similarly suited to his unappreciative intellect.
Watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for it's visual grandeur, it's ideas (whether or not you agree with them), and it's top-notch fight scenes. The plot itself may be slightly overused, in its general sense of revenge and fighting, but a few of the lines, especially delivered by Chow Yun Fat, are quite intriguing. And don't worry too much about the fact that Michelle Yeoh has a horrible accent -- you only care about that if you can speak Mandarin anyway, and so it shouldn't matter. Again, what is important to remember here is that Crouching Tiger is a hint at a legendary, almost unreachable past, together with its unique ideals and physical possibilities; it isn't meant to correspond to our reality. Watch it for it's own sake. It is a very beautiful thing.