A breathtakingly beautiful film set in the Wu Sha genre.

Rating: Null/10 (26 December 2000)

American audiences not familiar with the genre of 'Wu Sha' may need a quick lesson: Wu Sha is essentially the Chinese equivalent of sword and sorcery, but instead of magic potions and spells, the characters use a blend of incredible athleticism and meditation to achieve a state of physical power not unlike comic superheroes. In wu sha, if you are in the proper mental and physical state, you can literally become lighter than air. You can leap tall buildings (or bamboo groves) in a single bound. You can move faster than a speeding bullet. These assumptions aren't explained in the movie itself, which is why many American audiences have slight problems with 'realism' or 'suspension of disbelief' -- they're missing the point because they're just not used to the entire context that CTHD is set in. CTHD is not *supposed* to be 'realistic' in a physical sense. These people possess superpowers that are supernormal. Physically, CTHD is set in the realm of the super-normal. It's the emotional story which should be real. If you come to the film with this understanding, I believe you will enjoy this film a lot more. It's a shame that many Americans, ignorant of this context, giggle at the incredibly beautiful fight scenes and reject the entire story based on this ignorance. I almost wish Ang Lee had elected to give some brief explanation of wu sha at the beginning of the film to head off this potential story-telling obstacle.