Good, but not that good.

Rating: 6/10 (15 August 2018)

Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a good film, but it's not a great one. It's not as great as everyone says it is. Oh, it's definitely beautiful in every sense of the word. It's wonderfully choreographed. It's skillfully directed, and all of the acting talents ARE talented, and they depict their characters with depth, grace, and sometimes when necessary, wit.
But its handsome qualities can't hide its meandering, sometimes tedious storyline, although the storyline itself isn't the problem. Take into account the execution. Take out the dance-number action sequences, and what have you got? A bratty girl who wants to rebel and gets people killed as a result of her reckless actions and poor judge of character. Her motivations are indeed valid, but her actions are childish and grating, and not always justifiable as a 'means to an end' sort of thing. I'm glad Ang Lee didn't depict her actions as such, but she was still an obnoxious character whose lack of responsibility is almost rewarded with secrecy by people who are trying to help her despite how often she backhands them with her attitude.
I found the story underwhelming, to put it simply. The only other flaw I can think of is the dialogue, at least in the English-subtitled version (I haven't seen the dub, and don't plan to), where character traits and motivations are often explained to us in dull exposition sequences that could have been shortened or even cut out completely in favour of showing us their motivations through their actions. A skilled director can show his audience what his characters are thinking and feeling without telling them through stinted lines of dialogue, and I think Ang Lee is skilled enough to do it--he just didn't want to, I guess.
Anyway, despite my gripes, I think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is still a well-told film with a kind of beauty and grace that few others can match, visually and aesthetically. Wuxia isn't a genre I'm big on, but I can't say I've any feelings against it outright. I appreciate its capacity for amazing visuals and thematic symbolism, but it's a fickle style. Lee did an amazing job, and despite the hype surrounding this film, and the underwhelming execution of the story, I was not disappointed.