Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
(Wo Hu Zang Long)
Country: CHI/TAI/US
Technical: Technicolor/scope 120m
Director: Ang Lee
Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen
Synopsis:
China, some time after the Han and Chin dynasties. The Wudan are a brotherhood of fighters, trained by masters, who possess superhuman powers of speed, strength and agility by virtue of their discipline. When one of them decides to hang up his sword and give up his vendetta against the witch Jade Fox, he sets in motion a chain of events which will involve his love, his sworn enemy and a headstrong Governor's daughter who is self-taught from the Wudan manual.
Review:
An epic tale of Eastern virtues: patience, abnegation, equilibrium and faith. It unfolds at great leisure, demanding similar qualities of its viewer, and rewards with acting of considerable subtlety and images of exquisite beauty. The rationale is simple: with time to get to know the characters and their world, we will be all the more spellbound by the action when it comes, and thanks to the new technology (cf. The Matrix) the fights are truly choreographed rather than assembled in the cutting room. Nor is there the cathartic violence of, say, a Western here; the film ends sadly and with a note of mysticism.
(Wo Hu Zang Long)
Country: CHI/TAI/US
Technical: Technicolor/scope 120m
Director: Ang Lee
Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen
Synopsis:
China, some time after the Han and Chin dynasties. The Wudan are a brotherhood of fighters, trained by masters, who possess superhuman powers of speed, strength and agility by virtue of their discipline. When one of them decides to hang up his sword and give up his vendetta against the witch Jade Fox, he sets in motion a chain of events which will involve his love, his sworn enemy and a headstrong Governor's daughter who is self-taught from the Wudan manual.
Review:
An epic tale of Eastern virtues: patience, abnegation, equilibrium and faith. It unfolds at great leisure, demanding similar qualities of its viewer, and rewards with acting of considerable subtlety and images of exquisite beauty. The rationale is simple: with time to get to know the characters and their world, we will be all the more spellbound by the action when it comes, and thanks to the new technology (cf. The Matrix) the fights are truly choreographed rather than assembled in the cutting room. Nor is there the cathartic violence of, say, a Western here; the film ends sadly and with a note of mysticism.
(Wo Hu Zang Long)
Country: CHI/TAI/US
Technical: Technicolor/scope 120m
Director: Ang Lee
Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen
Synopsis:
China, some time after the Han and Chin dynasties. The Wudan are a brotherhood of fighters, trained by masters, who possess superhuman powers of speed, strength and agility by virtue of their discipline. When one of them decides to hang up his sword and give up his vendetta against the witch Jade Fox, he sets in motion a chain of events which will involve his love, his sworn enemy and a headstrong Governor's daughter who is self-taught from the Wudan manual.
Review:
An epic tale of Eastern virtues: patience, abnegation, equilibrium and faith. It unfolds at great leisure, demanding similar qualities of its viewer, and rewards with acting of considerable subtlety and images of exquisite beauty. The rationale is simple: with time to get to know the characters and their world, we will be all the more spellbound by the action when it comes, and thanks to the new technology (cf. The Matrix) the fights are truly choreographed rather than assembled in the cutting room. Nor is there the cathartic violence of, say, a Western here; the film ends sadly and with a note of mysticism.