Best Movie of the Year

Rating: 10/10 (17 February 2001)

Beautiful film worthy of all of its 10 Oscar nominations. It should have had two more, for Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi. I think Ang Lee should have placed a prologue in the movie to explain the fantasy of "Wuxia Warriors" a la Star Wars..."Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, and so on and so forth, blah blah blah." There are just some audience members who have a hard time understanding that the movie is a fantasy and have difficulty accepting the "flying scenes," yet they accept the flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz or Mary Poppins' extraterestial umbrella. I think a prologue would be helpful to those with lower comprehension level. This movie, I think, has created a new genre. A martial arts romance epic that, not only concentrates on superb choreography, but on very strong acting. I've seen it three times just to appreciate the full beauty of it.