Chop-Suey of Kung-Fu Movies -- A Festival of Clichés.

Rating: 6/10 (1 February 2001)

Imagine that you are from a small town in the middle of nowhere, and the only Chinese restaurant is a chop-suey house on the cross road. Everybody raves about it, even though its menu consists of only sweet-and-sour chicken balls, fried rice, and won-ton soup.
This is the feeling I got after getting out of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." There are lots of eye candies, and I must admit that the scenery is simply breathtaking. The acting were very well done, though I had trouble with most of the dialogue (I don't speak mainland Chinese, and I make a point not learning it.) Well, sometimes you *do* come across a chop-suey chef who actually cares about taste.
Taste alone, however, does not cover up some of the movie's fundamental flaws. First, "Hidden Tiger" goes way off tangent with certain characters so much that there is almost no time to develop other's. This leaves the film very unbalanced. Second, the fight scenes, the scenes which make "Hidden Tiger" a kung-fu movie than anything else. It almost looks like there is only enough budget for guy-wires and nothing else. In other words... people fly all over the place, most of the time. Finally, the plot elements themselves are very cliché, and the pace in exploring these elements is nonetheless too slow for what they are worth. For a veteran kung-fu movie viewer, this only spells frustration.
This is not to say that "Crouching Tiger" is poorly done. In fact it is quite tasteful, and its quality surpasses most kung-fu films I have seen. But everything else is as creative as any 19th century English novel. The only reason people are giving "Crouching Tiger" raving reviews is because most of them have much experience in kung-fu movies, like the way people rave about that chop-suey house in the middle of nowhere.