Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was nominated for Best Picture of 2000, and it's one of the best movies of the past ten years, in my opinion. It's an intriguing mix of martial arts movie and romantic fable and historical drama, and all of the elements work in harmony with each other so well here. This film is better in the subtitled version than the dubbed version, so that's why it took me a while to get around to writing about it. Almost all of the movie channels (where I'm getting most of my material these days) seem to think that the dubbed version is more popular. I just can't fathom why anyone would want to watch people speaking words that don't match the movements of their mouth at all--at least, unironically, anyway.
The action of the movie begins with the theft of a beautiful green sword that has been offered as a gift by a famous warrior, Master Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat). The woman he has loved for many years but whose affections he has denied and has been denied knows who has stolen the sword and attempts to return it to its new owner without Mu Bai becoming involved or embarrassed. Michelle Yeoh plays Shu Lien, and she's radiant here as someone who has fought beside Mu Bai and has always yearned for them to be together. They represent one of two primary romantic plots, and it's rewarding for me to see that someone above the age of, say, 40 can still be shown as a romantic lead.
The other romantic coupling involves Jiao Long, a young woman who has been trained the Jade Fox, a long time enemy of Mu Bai and Shu Lien and others on the side of "good." Jiao (Zhang Ziyi) is kidnapped during a journey across the deserts of China by a bandit named the Dark Cloud (Chen Chang). During her time as a prisoner, she begins to fall in love with Dark Cloud, of course, and they vow to prevent her arranged marriage so that the two of them can be together.
I don't know how many people will necessarily recall the romantic subplots first in discussing this movie, though. I expect what most remember are those astonishing fights among the trees. As the opponents leap from tree to tree, swords engaged in intense battle, it's as if they are floating above the ground. Similarly, the indoor battle scenes demonstrate such flexibility among the combatants, as they leap from wall to floor and from one level of a building to another, almost effortlessly, as if they could fly. This is pretty thrilling stuff to watch, and I can only imagine how much more spectacular it seemed on the big screen of a movie theater.
I've always admired Ang Lee's directorial efforts. He's incredibly talented and has worked within and across a wide range of genres. This film strikes me as perhaps his greatest achievement yet, thanks to his ability to thrill viewers with scenes like the one involving the older woman (Yeoh) and the younger woman (Zhang), obviously fighting for dominance in the male-centered world of martial arts and warriordom (if that's a word--it should be). Then he has the ability to entice viewers into moments of great serenity and repression, such as when Shu Lien cradles the head of Mu Bai as a poison moves through his bloodstream. The affection which she holds for him at that moment is quietly and beautifully expressed; she can't really tell him how she feels because it would be too painful to him. This really is a movie that is a masterful blend of traits from several different types of films.
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