Beauty and sometimes spectacular but without plot

Rating: 7/10 (7 March 2001)

The mostly favorable reviews I got for this film (not only written ones but also comments from friends) convinced me to go to the cinema to check it myself. I must admit that I was unable to find some of the supposed merits of "Crouching..". The plot is ridiculous (if there is plot at all), the characters are flat and many of the acting sequences are too obviously a fake (I don´t say that just for the "flying" but if you do something do it right). I´m not saying that this is an awful film. In fact it is maybe one of the best films in the last months as far as I can judge. But, being serious, it is highly overrated.
Where do I find the real strong points of this film? Well, I was really shocked by some scenes. The mix of a perfect photography, magic sets and really beauty shots create a handful of great moments (I remember specially a close-up to Jen and Lo with a waterfall as background and the arriving at Beijing). Of course there are some fight scenes that are spectacular (after all the film is nothing more than a discontinuous fight scene). Finally, the music is quite interesting when no consisting exclusively in drum beats. In these aspects "Crouching.." has many things to teach to action-filmmakers.
And now the comparisons. I would never believe that I was going to say that "Matrix" had a prodigy of plot but after "Crouching.." I must reelaborate the standards for kung-fu flicks. We must praise the effort for trying to tell a story to link the fights (breaking the model of "Bloodsport") but sadly it has been only a try (the dialogs are hilarious in their pretended deepness and all the characters have only one idea in mind and don´t change it for almost any reason). Maybe the problem rely on the fact that the screenplay adapts one of the books of a series of five (I´m not sure of that point but, in any case, is one of the novels in the middle). It is like a bridge in the middle of a river with no beginning nor end. I can accept the lack of one of the extremes but both of them is too much for me.
On overall, and considering the rest of films of the year, I will give it a 7 out of 10.