Running time: 120 minutes
Starring: Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen, Cheng Pei Pei
Rating 8 out of 10
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon weaves martial arts, romance, beauty and humour with a gossamer touch, elevating you, caressing you and thrilling you until finally its spellbinding ride lowers you gently back to earth. Director Ang Lee, who in the past has captured so brilliantly the nuances and truth of his adopted western culture in 'Sense And Sensibility' and 'The Ice Storm', has returned his native gaze eastward to explore the genre of film that enthralled and inspired him as a young man in Taiwan.
'Crouching Tiger' is a martial arts film with emphasis on the art. The stunning fight sequences owe as much to fantasy as they do to the gymnastics of Bruce Lee. Combatants find themselves in a world where self-belief overcomes the normal rules of physics as they run up walls, step majestically on water, leap across rooftops and even chase each other across a bamboo jungle canopy. In hands less skilful the effects could be discounted as hokey, but Lee turns them to his advantage, toying with reality and never allowing humour to wander too far away. The other distinctive feature of the fights is they always involve women. In a story dominated by powerful characters, never are they considered anything but at least the equal of men.
Based on Wang Du Lu's novel, the story revolves around a cursed and mythical sword, the Green Dynasty, and those into whose hands it passes. Chow Yun Fat plays the warrior Li Mu Bai returning from a meditation retreat. Awaiting him is Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) an accomplished martial artist, head of security and more significantly the woman with whom he shares an unspoken love. Vowing to put his feuding days behind him, Li asks Yu to take the sword to Bejing. There she meets a beautiful young girl of privilege Jen Yu. Preparing herself for an impending if unwelcome arranged marriage the young Jen expresses her desire for the excitement and adventure she imagines Yu's life to possess.
To this array is added the elusive Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei), who since murdering Li's old master has been in hiding, and Lo, aka Dark Cloud, the charismatic and handsome outlaw leader who once shared a passionate affair with the innocent Jen and with whom he hopes to be reunited.
It's not only the relationships between the characters, the sword and each other that are entrancing, but what happens when their paths cross. Choreographed by the legendary Yuen Wo-Ping, whose use of wires gave The Matrix its distinctive fight sequences, Crouching Tiger uses a multitude of weapons in its dizzying and spectacular contests.
Unlike many martial arts films the plot isn't at the service of the action. Although the characters speak in Mandarin, the sub-titles diminish little of their eloquence and the unabashed romanticism of both the look and story provide the perfect canvas on to which to add the vivid martial art.
