Okay, now let's all take a deep breath and relax

Rating: 8/10 (25 January 2001)

After reading reviews about this film and seeing comments on TV and so on, you would think that this was not only the best film in the world but the most unique film you will ever see.
RELAX!
I went into this film expecting to be blown away and maybe, just maybe that was my problem, but people please, come on! This was a fun film. It was intriguing and it was well choreographed but the best film of the year? You have got to be kidding me. Jackie Chan films are like this and so were all the after school-channel-twenty-chop-socki shows that I watched when I was a kid. I think I have a hard time understanding the discrimination between what is art and what is fun...because this is fun to me, nothing more.
Perhaps this film gets some of its praise because it is directed by Ang Lee. He has made some other films that critics have drooled over that were actually just okay films. See The Ice Storm and Sense and Sensibility, they were critical darlings but just average films. I am not saying that this is a bad film, quite the contrary. But it is not in the same realm as Traffic and Gladiator as best films of the year.
What is to like about the film is the martial arts. I love watching that one warrior that has been trained better than any other who just seems to be invincible. Here, that is Chow Yun Fat. He is one of the last of a dying breed of warrior that gets his training from an ancient religion. You have to go to a mountain to receive this training and it takes all of your life to master it. You are then something like a Jedi once you have mastered this. Of course there are those out there that are vengeful and they want to steal the secrets and swords and such and this launches the journey that the movie takes us on. The journey is to recover a stolen sword.

There is nothing wrong with this film. As a matter a fact, I like it very much. But it bothers me when judgments are clouded by films like this this one and yet a similar film can be passed off as fluff or entertainment. Why the prejudism? Why is one film better than another?
So my advice is simple. Go to this film, see it and enjoy, but please don't be looking for another Gone With The Wind. That is the critics job to tell you that. But be your own judge.
8 out of 10- a great film and fun to watch, but don't believe the hype!