Wonderful movie...

Rating: 9/10 (3 January 2001)

CTHD was a loving and clever tribute to the martial arts movies that Ang Lee grew up with in Taiwan, and presented in a way only Lee could do. The brilliant casting of Cheng Pei Pei should have given it away to any "serious" fan of the genre. Movies such as Golden Swallow, The One-Armed Swordsman, Blood Brothers, Men from the Monastery, only to name a few, were the backdrop for this wonderfully complex story. Everything about the movie told us something about the 5000-year-old culture, philosophy, and mythology of China. The fact that Lee did not have the movie dubbed showed that he wanted us to experience something that was truly Chinese. The dismissal of the use of wire work in its fight scenes certainly dismisses the culture and mythology of China and only shows the closed-mindedness and ignorance of a few viewers. The overwhelmingly positive comments about the CTHD shows more that just a few people "get it," notwithstanding those self-proclaiming fans of the genre as an excuse for not "getting it." I am not an expert on martial arts movies, but like Ang Lee, grew up with the aforementioned movies and countless others of that period.