eh.

Rating: 4/10 (10 October 2013)

Minor spoilers will be announced before they occur.
Celebrated as one of the best movies of all time I was always baffled by the success and universal acclaim of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. With the exception of the magnificent Eat Drink Man Woman and the fairy tale Life of Pi his body of work has always left me strangely cold so I was quick to suspect my distaste for Ang's body of work had tainted my view of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and a fan might come to the same conclusion judging by my score, but please note that I judge movies solely on their own values, the word "overrated" won't appear here.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, starring Hongkong super stars Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi, belongs to the WuXia genre, the Chinese sword-fighting epics that mainly blossomed in the 60s and 70s. Ang Lee, a lifelong fan of this genre, made it his main mission to erect it a modern cinematic monument (basically what Tarantino does with all of his movies) and spawned a new breed of modern WuXia movies like Zhang Yimou's Hero or so it seems. The story is fairly standard: love, betrayal, honor, duty and the conflicts that arise when these factors intermingle, sprinkled with some light philosophical undertones, OK fight choreography and pretty photography. The success in the west was massive, critics and moviegoers alike praised Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as the best thing since sliced bread. Hype always makes me suspicious but I'm mature enough to not let that cloud my judgment and I got excited. Unfortunately I was let down on every level.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (shortened to "Tiger & Dragon" in Germany) is just not a very good movie. The plot is painfully standard, the acting is surprisingly wooden, given the talents of everyone involved, the fight choreography is not very creative or exciting and the images aren't strong enough to hold the movie on their own.
(a little spoiler here) The only part I thoroughly enjoyed was the fight in the teahouse. Everything else, especially the dull and unnecessary desert episode left me clamoring for the movie that critics and friends had promised me. (/spoiler)
I have seen the movie several times now and despite the aforementioned scene I find nothing remarkable about it. It's not horrible and I can see how someone with no prior experience with Chinese Cinema would be fascinated by the Wire-Fu displayed, but that is the main crux now, isn't it? Western audiences usually have no knowledge of Asian cinema and saw many tired tropes for the first time in Ang Lee's Wu Xia attempt, mistaking them for brilliance. Absolutely every aspect of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has been done a lot better in countless other movies, from King Hu's A Touch of Zen and Dragon Gate Inn (and its remake by Tsui Hark) to the more modern Swordsman 2, Tai Chi, Wing Chun, just to name a few.
I'm not saying Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is awful, it's just unremarkable in every aspect and wastes the talents of Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh. I really wanted to like it but I can't fool myself.