Most people miss the boat.

Rating: 10/10 (12 June 2001)

To indicate what a master of deception Lee is - most people think this film is about a green sword and its theft. They also believe the film belongs in the genre of "Kung Fu" or martial arts movies.
Personally, I think we are wrong on both accounts. Lee has created an epic film with his usual sensitve, gentle style that is really about deception, illusion and he informs us that our eyes cannot be trusted as faithful interpreters of reality.
Lee implies much in his film while saying actually very little. The dialogue is extremely efficient and the characters are generally warm, sincere and very easy to identify with. It is really a film about finding ones destiny, the impossibility of capturing the past, and in many ways the limitations of cinema in spawning the imagination of the viewer. We are constrained by our previous knowledge of film and Lee takes this prejudice and both laughs at us for it, and loving uses it to create strong emotional scenes (such as the later "ballet among the trees").
It is an extremely important existential film with multiple layers of depth. One can see within the work of Ang Lee the influences of Bergman, Hitchcock, Truffaut, Fellini, Welles - all the masters, and he takes no shame in "borrowing" from them, and yet his own style characterized by an uncommon gentleness and contrast is so powerful that by referencing the masters, Lee (rightfully so), establishes his own chair among the pantheon.