bringing back the glory

Rating: Null/10 (6 August 2000)

cthd is a new milestone in wuxia (chinese martial art) movies which reached their artistic peak in the 60s and 70s with movies by the late king hu and zhang che. in the 80s, tsui hark's special effect-laden flicks were technically impressive but they lacked dramatic resonance and the action sequences were characterised by explosions and exaggerated perspectives which sacrificed clarity of movement.
the fights in cthd are much more exciting because what is called 'isolation' of movements in gymnastics is brilliantly achieved in the action choreography (by yuan ho ping). watch the early chase and the fight between michelle yeoh and zhang zi-yi towards the end to appreciate the beauty and ferocity of martial art. the flying-in-the-air stuff is a staple of wuxia movies and should be appreciated in the same vein as keanu reeves bouncing off the walls in the matrix.
the characters are some of the most complex ones i have ever seen in wuxia movies, and i have watched a lot of them. chow yun fat as usual brings depth and maturity to a role with many facets of emotions. michells yeoh plays a similarly repressed lover with admirable restraint. zheng pei pei shows what a legend she still is playing a failed and emotionally scarred martial art exponent-in-hiding with her usual intensity. the pleasant surprise is the young and talented zhang zi-yi who in only her second feature film role portrays to perfection a wayward aristocratic in search of personal and and emotional freedom unfettered by her gender.
lee ang is increasingly seen as a master specialising in movies featuring feminine concerns, a bit like a george cukor of the east. in cthd, the men are mostly ineffectual. witness the police, the bumbling security guard, jen (zhang)'s father, jen's erstwhile lover lo xiao hu (played by newcomer chang zhen) and even chow yun fat's li mu bai. they are unable to love and keep their lover, or to capture the villains that plaque them.
after a slightly slack part in the middle, when lee ang unexplainably takes too much time on developing the liaison between lo and jen, the movie picks up to a feverish pace where loyalty, hope, dreams and morals are examined, culminating in a most poignant and controversial ending.
what a throw back to the heyday of wuxia this is. i am reminded of king hu's a touch of zen and the incident at ying-chuen-ge. i hope this renaissance in an enduring and most loved genre in chinese cinema would continue.