Stunning, moving, tragic, uplifting, what more do you want?

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2001)

I was so apprehensive about this movie. I had heard so much that I feared I could only be disappointed. Surely no movie could live up to the hype.
How wrong I was. It's not a mainstream film (many of my friends have not even heard of it!) but I was swayed by the trailers I had seen, and the fact that the Director Ang Lee had some experience of western cinema. I thought he would be able to entertain us sad cultureless creatures without patronising us.
The photography was nothing short of breathtaking (see the early shots of the city as Michelle Yeoh's party drives through the ancient gates), and you will once again realise the power of cinema to show us vistas we could never hope to view otherwise.
Chow Yun Fat was a little wooden, but I was willing to set his character aside to allow Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang to spar both verbally and physically from first to last.
I watched this movie in a multiplex with the usual crowd of drunken misanthropes, who cheered and boo-ed throughout the first few fights scenes, but they soon became silent as the depth and power of the movie enthralled everyone. I'm sure they all left with thoughts of recommending this movie to their friends, and I expect DVD sales will be brisk to say the least.
I for one will place this movie in my personal top five.