Kung fu at its most poetic and beautiful

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2006)

If you like martial arts flicks, you just have to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's so incredibly good, it made me fall in love with Asian cinema.
Ang Lee's Oscar-winning magnum opus succeeds where most similar movies failed: to keep the personal, intimate story and the awesome, huge action on the same level, never letting one prevail on the other. The beautifully choreographed duels are exactly as important as the dialogue-heavy intermissions (or maybe the fights are intermissions). Think Lawrence of Arabia, only with small fights in the forest instead of massive combats in the desert.
The locations where the characters fight are a crucial part of the film's greatness: never has a duel looked so beautiful as when two people follow each other jumping from tree to tree, their movements so gracious and the combat itself so elegant and bloodless. It's like The Matrix in terms of visual delight, but more poetic.
The acting is perfect as well: Chow Yun-Fat is excellent in the unusual role of the retired warrior who is reluctantly forced back into action, Michelle Yeoh is of good support as his would-be love interest, and it's no wonder Ziyi Zhang has become one of the most wanted actresses in the world. She's astounding, playing such a layered character so well at such a young age.
Beautiful and tragic, it's something you just have to see. As soon as you possibly can.