No hype .... A Great Entertainment

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2001)

It's frightening and denigrating !
No, I don't mean the Ang Lee's piece de resistance: `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' which is a moving banquet for a resounding majority of the IMDB membership and the movie-going public in general. What I mean is the frightening diatribes and the denigrating tirades that were leveled at the film by a tiny minority who seem to be proud of wearing their prejudice smugly on their sleeves.
And no, I don't just mean the ignorant few who dislike the movie because they apparently have 'reasonable' gripes such as:
(a) I cannot stand moving my head up and down, reading subtitles while watching the movie
(b) I chuckle with derision at the ridiculous 'flying' and stylized fighting, and I cannot relate, not having read a Marvel comicbook in my life
Note: Many of us chuckled in the movie too, but only with exuberant delight at the flair and audacity that Ang Lee chose to stylishly stage the action.
(c) the female fighting prowess in the movie is grossly exaggerated - ptui ! I can take them on with one hand tied behind my back
(d) ) I find the movie so boring because the movie's cultural context overwhelmed me
(e) I abhor that martial art movie because Jet Li/Jackie Chan/Bruce Lee is not in it . how dare Ang Lee redefines chop-sockies
(f) I abhor that action/adventure/romance movie because only Lucas/Speilberg/Coppola can direct such successfully and only Hank/Ford/Willis can make it sparkle . how dare Ang Lee upstage Hollywood
I can go on, ad nauseum .. but you all know what I mean. Petty tripes for reasons, as these whiners moan and groan about being robbed of their 7 measly dollars and having 2 of their precious hours stolen from their lives. Nevertheless, they are entitled to their own opinions and prejudice. The more frightening and denigrating hosers are those whose sensibilities seemed to have been bitterly shattered by the hypes bestowed upon the movie and whose senses have been savagely benumbed by the 9.0 score accorded to the movie, so far, by the IMdb membership. ` How dare they hype the movie and commit the sacrilege of voting CTHD into the sacred sanctum of great celluloid classics like Godfather, Shawshank, Casablanca, Schindler's, Kane !' they ranted and raged, spouting vitriol and lambasting the rest of us. It never occurs to them, that we are the same people who voted those great classics into the upper echelon of the IMDB Top 250.
So, my advice to them is to stop playing God and just let the IMDB crowd cast their votes honestly without prejudice and machination from you. Please refrain from cajoling us with such machiavellian crap: "CTHD doesn't deserve a 9.0, so cast a 1 to bring it down to a 5 which it only deserve" or stupid nonsense like this.
Fellow voters, don't be seduced by the hypes and don't be manipulated by the venoms. If CTHD is destined to become a classic, so be it and if it falls from grace and is relegated to being a trendy flash like 'Fifth Element', let it be. Be honest, be true, be yourself .. just vote your heart as we are supposed to do.
And don't be influenced by me, either.
No hype: `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' is great entertainment. I was lost in it for 2 hours and I will lose a couple of more hours before I'm thru. For the vicarious thrill, I rate it a comfortable 9.