A Decent, But Overrated Martial Arts Movie

Rating: 5/10 (19 February 2005)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a terribly overrated film. While it certainly isn't the worst ever made, it also definitely isn't the best, as some people like to think.
The action scenes are decent, but uninspired and unoriginal. If you have seen such movies as Once Upon A Time In China I, II, and III, then you've already seen some of the fight scenes.
Probably the worst point of the movie were its scenes of romance. They were cliché, they stretched on for long periods of time and they weren't all that interesting. While I don't mind having romance scenes in movies, I expect them to be of a reasonable length, and for them to be interesting. These scenes dragged on unnecessarily long, and they weren't that interesting.
Another problem with the movie was the characters. The movie gave you no real reason to care about these characters. They just weren't interesting characters, they didn't hook you in.
At the very beginning, the movie was interesting, but after that one fight scene in the restaurant, things went down hill from there.
If I were forced to summarize this movie with one word, that word would be mediocre. If you want a good martial arts movie with interesting romance scenes in it, I recommend the movie Hero, as well as Once Upon A Time In China I, II and III.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is inferior to many martial arts movies out there, and should only be watched if this is your only choice of rental.