The pinnacle of what a Chinese fantasy movie should be

Rating: 10/10 (3 February 2001)

I lived in Hong Kong for nearly three years of my life and I learned Cantonese. I've been married to my wife from Taiwan for over four years now, and I've picked up Mandarin. I love Chinese culture, Chinese people, and Asian history tremendously -- however, I've never been a fan of kung fu movies. Why? Because most of them do great injustice in their presentation of the art of Kung Fu -- they over-stylize it, they become pop pieces of phony action sound effects, vomit-inducing camera movements, and shotgun editing. And the stories -- sweet Buddha -- such tremendous wealth of incredible Chinese literature available, all but unknown to the West -- trivialized by bad acting, bad writing, quick-buck-turning productions. Some of Jet Li's Wong Fei Hong films are considerably good, and the kung fu can't be beat, but the stories are still slaughtered -- the characters (especially the female characters) are excruciatingly stereotypical.

After viewing Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I came close to weeping for joy. This is what Chinese fantasy films should aspire to. This is the film that Chinese literature has been dying for -- a very true-to-source adaptation of an excellent Chinese novel, incredibly acted and reconstructed. The mood is subdued throughout, not wontonly hyper. The fight scenes are, for the most part, scrolling and steady, showing stealth and true physically acute movements -- not a rampant collage of quick cuts, zoom ins, and the same two swooshing and contact sound effects over and over.
I could go on with Ang Lee's genius, but I'll just recommend the films "Pushing Hands" and "The Wedding Banquet" as his other less-known masterpieces.
The story is an excellent example of traditional Chinese fiction, full of personal dilemma, altruistic heroes with deeply embedded values (Where has altruism gone in American heroes?), and more non-verbal than spoken communication between characters. The concept of great personal loss is hardly something you see in American literature and film -- suffering can never be near as great as the forced good-feeling ending. Loss is an eternal theme in Chinese fiction -- one must lose to gain deeper love and appreciation.
Some people have criticized the dialog -- well, no matter how well a language is translated in the subtitles, there are always inflections, hidden meanings, cultural references, and idioms that subtitles cannot communicate fully -- some that cannot be translated at all without deeper explanations. (Imagine a Chinese person trying to watch "Wayne's World" or "Good Morning, Vietnam" in Chinese subtitles -- how the hell do you translate THAT?) Plus, subtitles have to trim expressions down to the basest level to have enough screen-time to be read. Unless you are fluent in Chinese, do not criticize this movie for its dialog -- which the subtitles do a fair job of translating.
See this movie -- on the big screen if you can. For those unfamiliar with Asian fiction, it's an extremely moving introduction to true Kung Fu ethics of ancient times and traditional story-telling style of the best of Chinese fantasy. Keep one thing in mind, though -- most of the gravity-defying physical feats portrayed ARE meant to be fantasy -- they're representations of mythical feats of great Kung Fu secrets and mastery, enabling one to be superhuman. If you're an action movie fan, and you don't scoff the good-guy's ever-loaded, perfect-aiming pistol in your favorite action movie, don't "sheesh" or "yeah, right" any of the beautiful gravity-defying movements in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.