Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves!

Rating: Null/10 (14 January 2001)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is, for lack of a better word, astonishing. It's easily the best film I've seen this year (a title previously held by Almost Famous).
Directed by Ang Lee, this is a movie that had me slack-jawed with wonder for most of its playing time. The story is a retelling of an ancient Chinese folk tale: warrior Li Mu Bai (a commanding Chow Yun-Fat), heartsick at killing, has decided to take the path of peace. He asks his longtime friend Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh, in perhaps her finest performance) to give his 400-year-old sword, the Green Destiny, to Sir Te in Beijing. Shortly after the sword has been given to Sir Te, it vanishes, coinciding with the arrival of Governor Yu for his daughter Yu Jen's (Zhang Ziyi) arranged wedding. What follows is an engrossing detective story involving plots and counterplots: Lin Mu Bai suspects that it has been stolen by Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei), who may be posing as someone in Governor Yu's household. And Jade Fox may have an accomplice.
Tied into this plot are several subplots: the unspoken yearning between Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien; Yu Jen's desire for a life other than that as the wife of a bureaucrat; and her secret love for thief Lo (Chang Chen), a nomadic desert chieftain. The scenes between Chow and Yeoh are especially touching; Yeoh is particularly subtle and nuanced in her acting.
As touching as the romantic scenes are, the fight scenes are explosive and unbelievably fluid. People walk on water, they run up walls and leap from rooftop to rooftop as if gravity were just a nuisance, an idea to be ignored. I was particularly struck by how carefully the scenes were choreographed: Chow Yun-Fat's spare, economical style, befitting a master warrior; Yeoh's beautiful, natural style; and especially Zhang, who seems like a cross between Warner Brothers' Tasmanian Devil and a whirling Dervish, all angles and nuclear-powered fury. But the best thing is, the fight scenes don't feel tacked-on; they are led to naturally from all that came before.
I have a couple of quibbles with this movie all the same: parts of it felt like they dragged or were longer than they needed to be, and the desert scenes between Chang and Zhang could easily have been put at the start of the movie. But that's minor compared to the sheer artistry on display here.
Much has been written on the strong feminist streak running through this movie. Women are the focus here, and with no apologies. But it doesn't feel like an anti-male rant; it is, instead, a touching and affecting movie about men and women. The diversity of the audience at the screening I attended certainly surprised me: couples of all ages, a small army of teenaged Asian girls, the requisite wuxia fanboys. At the end of the movie, the audience erupted in spontaneous applause and cheers.
And so, to sum up this too-long review: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of those rare movies that satisfies your heart and your head. Go see it. Go see it RIGHT NOW. My grade: A.
-terry-