A Movie Classic

Rating: 10/10 (18 April 2001)

Caution: There may be spoilers ahead. A culture thoroughly embedded in tradition, honor, duty, and repression of natural instincts is suddenly lit up by the exciting light of a beacon of the free human spirit. Jen, who embraces her passions proudly, is everything the principals in this movie oppose; yet, like moths, they are attracted to her - and the effect is every bit as devastating to them as the beacon light is to the moths. Each views Jen as a tabula rasa to be shaped to fit his or her own ideal. Gray Fox wants to join with her as a team to conquer the underworld. Her father would have her marry to improve his political position. Yu Shu Lien would have her submit to her duties as a woman. Li Mu Bai would make her his protege as a Wudan knight. But Jen ever follows her passions (Li: "Kneel!" Jen: "Never!") and holds to her own free spirit to the very end, even when engulfed by guilt and sorrow.
In Jen we have one of the most remarkable and constant characters in literature, joining with the likes of, among a very few others, Shakespeare's Juliet, Irish legend's Deirdre, Ibsen's Nora, and more recently Mary from "The Book of Stars" and Devon from "Lawn Dogs" to form a singular group of free-spirited heroes who live a perilous existence in a society that greatly fears the natural free spirits of its members.