A fine film, but Best Picture?

Rating: Null/10 (18 February 2001)

I liked this flick overall, but I'm afraid I can't endorse it carte blanche as others seem fit to do. While Michelle Yeoh's performance was excellent, I found Chow Yun Fat's performance contrived for the most part. He seems to have 3 expressions to cover most situations: solemn, earnest and solemnly earnest. There is a certain sense of amused charm that glows in selected scenes, however these are few and far between. The cinematography was lush and a joy to the eye. Oddly enough, the problems I had with this film for the most part were with the fight and flight sequences and not because I had a problem suspending disbelief, I recognize this film is a fantasy. It was the quality of the effects, or lack thereof that was striking *on occasion*. The first sequence involving the flight over the rooftops felt off to me in many ways. They looked like actors suspended from wires for the most part. They would change direction by pushing off a wall or a rooftop except that it was plainly obvious their foot hadn't touched the surface of the roof or wall. In the Matrix there were similar scenes but one always had at least a vague sense of a body's *mass*. With Crouching Tiger sometimes this would be conveyed and at other times it wasn't. I think it was the inconsistency that bothered me the most. The most compelling fight sequences were those involving Michelle Yeoh and/or Ziyi Zhang. The writing was good, but not exceptional. It's interesting that the thrust of the martial arts tends to be inner harmony and mental discipline, yet every film of this genre seems predicated on revenge and Crouching Tiger certainly doesn't break the mould in that respect. For the genre it was exeptional and I can see it being nominated and winning Best Foreign Feature, but Best Picture? That's a stretch.