Not authentic

Rating: 1/10 (29 November 2003)

Wonder why the film bombed so badly in China itself? Well, there are probably many reasons but I can tell you one of the main reasons why this film went down so badly with me was because of the Mandarin, especially the Mandarin delivered by the two main leads in the movie. Chow Yun Fatt's Mandarin was terribly awkward and heavily accented in Cantonese, while Michelle Yeoh's was even worse; extremely wooden and her Malaysian accent was incomprehensible at times. The only actress who delivered her lines convincingly was Zhang Zi Yi. It's just not convincing that this is a story set in Ancient China when the leads just do NOT sound their parts; at some points during the movie the audience in the theatre, most of whom understand Mandarin, was rocking in laughter from their terrible diction. In fact, I don't think it'd be any different watching the English-dubbed version of the movie.
Furthermore, CTHD definitely does NOT have the best plot in the genre, nor the best fighting scenes either. Understandably, the whole martial arts period drama concept was probably refreshing to the Western audience, but it is disturbing to see that the production was banking on this factor to achieve its success. I've grown up on a staple of martial arts movies and have definitely seen better dialogue, plot depth and gong fu moves elsewhere, even during the '80s! I found the two lead characters in the movie 2-dimensional and there was hardly any chemistry between them at all.
Theoretically I should be happy that a genre that I love has gained appreciation from a worldwide audience, but in fact, it actually outrages me to see that its success was largely based on marketing and packaging, with little attention paid to authenticity. The latter makes it so obvious that this movie is targetted at the Western audience.