A nice looking film with no substance

Rating: Null/10 (4 May 2001)

This film is nice to look at, impressive fight sequences but not much more than that. What probably bothers me most about this film is that most critics praised it as a masterpeice calling it a grand love story and brilliantly directed when it is so obviously anything but. The story has a plot that is so mindless and stupid the audience I was viewing it with just had to laugh at certain bizarre parts. It goes like this a young woman is secretly a talented ninja, an older woman is a skilled fighter too, and Chow Yun Fat plays the male lead totally unconvincingly. They are all either trying to get or protect a special sword and that is pretty much the story. Their isn't anything I don't understand about this film, I know the plot, I know why it has the title crouching tiger, hidden dragon (it is making reference to hidden strength), but what I don't understand is the critics praising. While I was watching this film I found it exciting but rather slow in between the fight sequences (due to horribly boring dialogue) but by the end I felt ripped off. If there is one positive thing I can say about this whole bizarre CTHD phenomenom is that when I watched the oscars I had a bad feeling this stupid foreign film might grab best picture because since it took best director at the DGA awards it was pretty much a shoo-in for that category, but when the best director was announced and Steven Soderbergh won I was so relieved, and even better was when the much more complex and exhilarating Gladiator took home best picture.