See 36th Chamber of Shaolin.....

Rating: 2/10 (26 February 2001)

Crouching.... has great fight sequences, great music, but then I'll stop at that. The fight sequences are few and far in between. The "in between" is really boring. You are once treated to a edge of the seat fight scene followed by long melodramatic scenes.
But that is not the worst part. The story. The story is such typical run of the mill Asian movie fare, it is not even funny. ClichÃ© stuff such as brotherhood/sisterhood, rebellious love affair, revenge, unrequited love, feminism, lofty romantic dialogues (Take a leap of faith and your desire will come true), the lengthy dramatized death of the male protagonist all packaged in the film with no interrelations. The scene in the restaurant although greatly performed, really was there for enticement purposes. Can anybody give me a justification for that sequence or it's bearing with the story?
The Character played by Zhang Ziyi: I could not figure out if I should like her, despise her or sympathize with her. She is brash, she is skillful, but not disciplined. But she doesn't get disciplined even in the end. So I am to assume that although she is undisciplined she can do all the feats of the masters that they have achieved with years of meditation and practice. She realizes Jade Fox is really evil and cunning, but she is mad at Li mu Bai and the character played by Yeoh. She goes from Yeoh's sister to foe before you can read the subtitle (literally one sentence). I could understand what she did not want from her life but I still cannot fathom what she wants in life. She does not want to be a student, something Jade Fox gripes about that she was not given an opportunity, because she was a woman. She does not want the lover she found of her own means. She is really not a protector of the underprivileged masses, she only beats up people who disturb her meal. Can anybody explain to me what she wanted in life?
Character played by Chow Yun Fat: The guy went into meditation and reached a place where there was much disturbance. He realized he needed to avenge his masters death and find Jade Fox. Oh well so much for meditative ways of non violence. So he is back into his role as a warrior. But then why relinquish your weapon. You relinquish your weapon and take up full time meditation or vice versa. How can you do both?
Character played by Michelle Yeoh: We understand women were not trained to be warriors, then where the hell did she get her education?
The movie is typical Asian movie fare where you have piecemeal slices of the various contexts, namely love, action, emotion, etc. Humor was evidently missing from this cliche ridden movie, but I am sure director Ang Lee may have toyed with the idea of pushing a comedian in there somewhere (characters in restaurant and their American football team names).

The western media and audience do not see very many Asian films and hence the movie looks refreshing. There is a long-established genre in Chinese film and literature called "Wuxia." The Wuxia were a class of knights during the time of Confucius, who in this fantasy-based fiction often have magical abilities like flight (actually more like gravity-free leaps), and speed, reflexes and strength of superhuman levels. Chinese movies about them, called Wuxia Pien, have been made for decades, but few have had the budget or the expected worldwide release that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has had. One of the best movies I have seen in the Kung-Fu genre (and even as a film) still remains (As released in the country that I saw) "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin" (originally titled "Shao Lin san shih liu fang"). Yeah, typical kung fu fighting movie, perhaps even lacking in form compared to CTHD, but in terms of content, "Par Excellence".
Ask yourself after you see CTHD, if those fight sequences were to be removed and replaced with run of the mill martial arts action sequences, would you still call it a great movie (Love story)? On the other hand if the romance was removed, would it still be a great Martial Arts movie? The two aspects were incongruously placed in the film and overall the story lacked sense and reason. CTHD has been touted as "Sense and Sensibility" meets Martial arts. I found it more as "Sense and Sensibility" incoherently interspersed with Martial arts. Crouching... is as lousy as it can get. It's characters are uninspiring and the film unlike other Wuxia movies is really spiritually hollow.