The paradoxical ideology of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Rating: 10/10 (12 June 2001)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is, like the final piece of advice which Michelle Yeoh gives to Jen, true to itself. Its aesthetic principles are the same as its practice. There is no desire without restraint, and repression only heightens passion we are told; this is lived out in the film, and experienced within the audience as it is brought to tears, in the final scene between the hitherto restrained lovers Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh. After years of privation, self-control and stifled desire, these two finally embrace. Preceded as it is by such restraint, it is a moment of ultimate cathartic release: passion breaking through dignified respect. Yet it is also an expression of complete powerlessness: the love is thwarted and can never lead to anything. The paradoxical nature of this (finding love only in death, finding release only in repression) proves the humanity and feeling of the film's Zen philosophy of order, of balancing opposites, upon the reader's pulses.
The film looks at opposing forces: youth and venerability (or innocence and experience) classicism and romanticism', form and content', spirituality and materialism', sense and sensibility' (one of Ang Lee's previous films). In such a context, Jen represents the romantic materialism of youth (and the aristocracy) while Michelle Yeoh stands for the classical spirituality of experience (and working class stoical morality). The latter preaches the philosophy of form and discipline to the former, but Jen will not accept the wisdom of the older woman's sensibility: she has been corrupted by a wicked master. Jade Fox, the film's villain, has already taught her to dream of fame and freedom, independence and self-rule (romantic principles). As a result she is suspicious of Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat's philosophy of restraint and submission: when he tells her, during a sparing fight, that the only way to find herself is to loose herself, she scorns him for talking like a monk.
Jen is the hero of the film: she is the one that survives to enjoy the truly happy ending because she has been bold enough to love. However, it is made very clear that her happiness has been bought at a price: her romantic adventurous fun perniciously brings Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat into martial confrontation, necessitating the subjugation of their love. They harm none, but rather protect Jen from her own romanticism and this proves the superior strength and humanity of their classical restraint and formal discipline. The benevolence which classical restraint is capable of administering is thus emphatically pointed out, especially in penultimate scene where, although her life has been ruined by Jen's impetuousness and the latter deserves to die for her folly, Michelle Yeoh stops the raised sword before it touches the girl's neck as a sign and a real implementation of the mercy of restraint (as opposed to the cruelty of passion).

On the other hand, the film is not a straightforward advocation of the ascetic self-privation of monastic life: Chow Yun Fat's last words express his regret at having wasted his life in pursuit of spiritual excellence rather than love. The materialism of Jen is part of her youth, her zest for life; while the spirituality of Chow Yun Fat is deathly and pale in comparison. Jen chases the desert bandit in pursuit of her hair comb (green  the colour of life) and is equally obsessive about securing the green destiny sword. She relishes the beauty of these two fertility symbols (the green comb and sword), risking her own death, after Chow Yun Fat has thrown it over the waterfall, to retrieve the sword. Although her passionate romanticism makes her the film's hidden dragon , a secret poison that destroys, like her wicked master Jade Fox, it also makes her the film's nectar, its life force.