Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful

Rating: Null/10 (16 September 2004)

It's not often that a film's visual virtuosity has the ability to hit you right between the eyes. I'm still saying 'WOW', and this may go on for days.
Every shot is a masterpiece of composition combined with fluid, stylized movements as graceful and technically precise as the strokes of a master calligrapher's brush. And the storyline is faithful to the best of the classical taoist fables. Lao Tzu and Sun Tzu breathe in every frame of this film.
I was grateful as well to the film's releasers for not dubbing it into English, which would have destroyed the unity of this grand opus.
A gorgeous film, absolutely stunning. If ever I teach AP English classes again, I will most certainly be using this film in my classes as perhaps the penultimate example of how filmmakers use color, composition, music, and movement to reinforce complex metaphorical and philosophical themes. Thank you, whomever talked US movie distributors into putting this into theaters.