Ang Lee's Best Film to Date as of 2006

Rating: 10/10 (8 January 2006)

First, I don't think it matters that there are subtitles and the language is Chinese. The story is strong and moves along smoothly. The fighting scenes are worth watching alone. The actors are choreographed to dance and fight with you just wanting to see who defeats. The story is also told with great costumes, art direction, and scenery. The stars of this film are Asian actors and actresses who don't get enough work in this business. While the subtitles might throw you off, it's not hard to understand what's going on by studying their actions, movements, and facial expressions. If Ang Lee had the actors talk in English throughout the film, I don't think it would have lost much value to me since I'm not Asian or Chinese or the audience. I believe that this is one of the best foreign language films of the last decade and it was awarded an Oscar for Foreign Language Film. Although I don't think Ang Lee cared about awards in making this film, this film has female characters who are both strong and equal to the male characters in the film. The females sometimes steal the scenes from the men. It's nice to see women portrayed as strong, equals than emotional inferior characters. They are equally adept at the fighting scenes and they give their all to those scenes. When you think of Ang Lee's other films, nothing could really master the beauty and uniqueness of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.