Beautifully poetic, makes you want to fall in love with film again

Rating: Null/10 (6 January 2001)

I have to say that the year 2000 has been very disappointing for film, films such as Charlie's Angels, Snatch, Gone in Sixty Seconds, etc have all showed Hollywood's hollowness when it comes to film. The only good film was Gladiator, that was very well done - however Ang Lee's beautifully shot Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon takes its mantle as the best film of 2000, or if your in the UK (like me) the best film of 2001.
This magnificent and poetic film is wonderous to watch and to marvel in. It's tough not to get a kick out of this operatic movie. There's fateful romance, legendary themes of honor and determination, strong heroines, and fantastically choreographed martial arts which finally put films such as Jackie Chan's Drunken Master 2 or the Matrix to shame.
The fight moves, masterfully choreographed by The Matrix's Woo-Ping Yu have a definitive poetic flow to them which suits the films mood and melodramatic beautifully. The fly-by-wire scene's may get a few groans from Western Audience's - but there is a beauty in those sequences that weren't captured by the Matrix or other previous films.
The two main characters played brilliantly by Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh (who looks as stunning as ever!) carry off their roles with charm, and the melancholy of their unspoken love has real pathos.
There's also plenty of backstory to fill the melodrama, amongst the intertwining plotline - there is Jade Fox's disciple, the beautiful Jen (Zhang Zi Yi), an aristocrat with a delicate exterior but the heart of a fighter. She's preparing to marry into wealth, but has a dream of escaping with Pirate Lo - and a dream where she can do as she pleases and is not constrained by her family or wealth.
One of the film's centerpieces is a perfect reflection of its sheer beauty - Chow Yun Fat and Jen swordfight among the wispy treetops, soaring and climbing to the quiet strains of cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
It has many messages, such as that life constantly devoted to the study of Martial Arts is not a beautiful one, but one filled with sorrow. Or messages such as finding your own path may lead you to destiny. Also towards the end the haunting message that Chow gives to Yeoh about being a ghost by her side rather than rise to the next level in life is mesmerizingly beautiful and sad.
Ang Lee's achievement is to reconnect the flagging martial arts genre with its latent sense of decorum and romance, qualities which have been ignored by other martial arts films who seemed to confuse martial arts with action.
Crouching Tiger exposes the fatal secrets of martial arts with those of meditation and even calligraphy, and persuades us to take them equally seriously. Added to the maticilous skill in rendering the delicate touches of the principals' hidden love, he has an epic sense of space and landscape, moving lightly from Peking to the desert: Ang Lee puts a girdle around his earth in seconds.
This film is what the Phantom Menance should have felt like. And Ang Lee must certainly win the best picture award at this year's Oscars, but knowing Hollywood, they'll give Ang Lee the best foreign picture - which is a shame, because this film is certainly the best I've ever seen in a long time.
Overall: Sublime, Superb, Brilliant. Rating : 10/10