A highly flawed film that falls flat in drama and story.

Rating: 3/10 (27 February 2001)

Crouching Tiger set itself up for an epic story of Chinese myth. For the first 30 minutes, I truly believed the hype. But sadly, the story goes nowhere after that. The relationship between Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh's characters never fully develops and neither does the plot. And their fantastic acting is wasted amongst herky jerky plot lines.
Give me more of the Wodan. What are they, what do they do? Why can they defy gravity? After the initial setup, the rest of the movie is nothing more than a showcase for Ang Lee's flawed direction. The flying scenes are laughable. And Lee's banal direction in the 2nd half of the film brings you from such a high that the fight scenes seem more like distractions.
The final scene where everything is resolved was touching, but I felt so disappointed because it could have been heartbreaking, tear jerking. Instead, I kept waiting for the movie to be over.