The World's Best Movie Of 2000!!!

Rating: 10/10 (1 November 2000)

"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is the best movie I've seen in the theaters this year! The film's production is incredible and despite the reported $12.5 million figure for the budget, the film looked like a $70 million production! Just look at the number of extras used, the sets, the costumes, the locations (China is a very beautiful country!) the stunts, and the list goes on!
To stress out why the film is the best! The cast is virtually perfect! Chow Yun-Fat, who's more known with those gun man roles, is simply the best to play Li Mu Bai. Chow's calm, combined with the character's wisdom, showed that the role was like it was made for him. Michelle Yeoh's acting adds maturity to the story, and as great as she performs martial arts, she acts great! Ziyi Zhang is easily one of the most promising young actresses in the world, and you'll see why. The supporting cast is very great too! Pei-Pei Cheng's Jade Fox is very expressive, very wise and it gives the film a strong presence of "opposition".
The martial arts scenes are perfect! Woo-ping Yuen, who choreographed the martial arts scenes in the usually over-rated "The Matrix", worked harder and better in this film. As far as martial arts go, Crouching Tiger is easily the best of them all not just because of the amount of action, not just because of the kind of styles used, but because Woo-ping dedicated a lot of research and heart. The result is a martial arts fest that connects itself with character expression and story flow.
And if you think "The Matrix" is the greatest martial arts fest, you're very wrong! Crouching Tiger easily destroys "The Matrix" into a billion pieces! As if that's not enough, Crouching Tiger's story and character development is so deep it renders "The Matrix" obsolete and worthless.
Acting and action speaking, Crouching Tiger never failed me. Like the tradition of Chinese epics, we see the stars act and perform the action themselves! If you thought Chow Yun-Fat's only good with guns, you'll be shocked to see how he performs martials arts here. Even Pei-Pei Cheng, an old chubby lady, would shock you with her moves. Cheng showed that even women in her age and build can move fast and fight with greatness! Michelle Yeoh still fights as great as she did when she was young. As for Ziyi Zhang, she makes a great martial artist!
Heck, if you put Keanu Reeves up against any of the above mentioned stars (or anyone in the film), he would either chicken out or easily be defeated!
Ang Lee's direction reminds me a bit of Irvin Kershner's work in "The Empire Strikes Back". Aside from the use of fight scenes and some special effects, Lee brought out a lot of expression and drama from the characters to the point where the viewer sees everyone here in a high level of being human.

Crouching Tiger's story is one of a kind. A great sword gets stolen, then the story pushes on with unmatched expression, very nice twists, characters express a lot of themselves, viewers get to learn some very valuable lessons and morales, and the story ends with one of the most unique endings I've ever seen in any movie!
Use of music is done greatly, and it perfectly fits the mood and what goes on. CoCo Lee's theme song "A Love Before Time" is the best movie song I've heard in a long time. I feel it should be nominated for the next Oscars, and that goes the same with the musical scoring.
Now that I've seen this film in the theaters, I now look towards the upcoming DVD version. And to those of you who read this review, I highly-recommend watching this. You'll be amazed and entertained with greatness! This is the Year of the Dragon, and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is simply the best movie in the world today!