Often cited in top hundred polls of the best films ever made, this multi award winning cross-genre classic not only revived the Wuxia genre for wide eyed westerners, but also put martial arts cinema back into the art house. While the Chinese, for the most part, turned their noses up. Ben Johnson tunes in.
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Ent. UK Format: Region 2 - Will only play on European Region 2 or multi-region DVD players Length: 120 min. Aspect Ratio: Widescreen 2.35:1 Anamorphic Audio: Mandarin; English (Dubbed) Subtitles: English, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Hindi, Hebrew, Bulgarian, Greek, Arabic, Portugese Extras: 'Unleashing the Dragons' - Making Of Documentary (18:52), Interview With Michelle Yeoh (13:48), Feature Length Commentary by Ang Lee (Director) and James Schamus (Co-Writer/Co-Producer), Photo Gallery, Weblink, Talent Files, Domestic And International Trailers Sound: Dolby Digital (5.1)
Year of Release: 2000; Origin: United States, Hong Kong, Taiwan; Studio: Sony Pictures
Director: Ang Lee; Producer: Ang Lee, Hsu Li-kong, William Kong Chi-keung; Script: Wang Hui-ling, James Schamus, Tsai Kuo-jung; Action Director: Yuen Woo-ping; Cast: Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Yeoh Chi-kung, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen, Cheng Pei-pei, Lung Sihung
Alternative Titles: Wo hu cang long (China: Mandarin title); Ngo foo chong lung (Hong Kong: Cantonese title); Green Destiny (Japan: English title)
19th Century, China: Li Mui-bai, a virtuous and widely noted Wudan swordsman, returns home to visit fellow warrior and long-term romance tease Yu Shu-lien, and the two plan on living out their lives in the secluded bliss of tranquil retirement. But when Li’s prestigious sword, the Green Destiny, is stolen, plans go slightly awry. They uncover the thief to be the General’s rebellious daughter, Jen Yu, escaping an arranged marriage and living a secretive double life as a student to the infamous criminal ‘Jade Fox’, the renowned mastermind behind the death of Li’s brother. Jen’s mastery of a stolen Wudan manual exceeds expectation, and longing for freedom and acceptance, she escapes her regal confines and begins a wave a rebellious activity that eventually threatens the livelihoods of both Li, Yu, and also the allusive Jade Fox.
Review
Crouching Tiger can be seen as the start of a massive transitional period for martial arts film, when kung fu movies took a giant, high-flying leap into the mainstream. Its immense success (over forty awards, including four Oscars) was unheard of for a film of its kind, while its strong narrative and deep metaphorical subtext meant that film scholars and the general public alike could connect with the universal truth of its story-telling, quite an accomplishment for a genre film desperately trying to shrug off its B-movie history, and even more of an achievement when considering it’s filmed entirely in China with actors speaking an outdated version of Mandarin. On paper, it doesn’t quite look like a film that would be a smash hit all over the world, but Crouching Tiger is an experience like no other, and given that the majority of western cinema goers had never really seen anything like this before (let alone on a scale and budget of this magnitude) it’s clear to see why so many people could connect with it. Put frankly, even hardened chopsocky fanatics will admit that this film just blows your head off.
Based on one of the stories in Wang Du Lu’s five-novel cycle of wuxia writings, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the fourth book in the series, and doesn’t totally concern itself with the characters of Li Mui Bai and Yu Shu Lian in the same way Ang Lee’s film does. This film is built on parallels, both concerning the action and the characters, and is rooted in the mythology of Chinese story telling. Firstly, we have Yu Shu Lian (Michelle Yeoh’s character), who’s as compelling as she is complicated. Yu is rooted in the code of the jianghu tradition, and is therefore restricted to consummate her relationship with Wudan swordsman Li Mui Bai after her fiancée, Li’s ‘brother’, is killed by the legendary thief Jade Fox. Yu represents the repressive emotions of a bygone age of Chinese tradition, where women took a backseat to male chivalry, and acts like the archetypal heroine from an old-fashioned kung fu film. Jen (Zhang Ziyi) is the youthful embodiment of the swordplay queen; her class status elevating herself above the other characters (she’s the General’s daughter). She’s torn between the tales she reads of jianghu literature and the reality of Yu Shu’s warrior lifestyle. Jen’s rebellion is fuelled by a desire to be free, to escape the confines of an arranged marriage, to run away (literally) with a loveable rouge (played by Chang Chen), and in turn experiences real jianghu adventures under the tutelage of Jade Fox. Yu and Jen are similar, but altogether different: ‘one romantic and impulsive, the other pragmatic and self-denying’. (Hunt 2004: 137).
Even the character of Jade Fox isn’t spared a deep interpretation, with Ang spinning the Master/Pupil narrative on its head. Jade entices Jen with ‘dreams of the jianghu underworld’, but her illiteracy means that she is unable to read the rest of a stolen Wudan manual, while Jen progresses in leaps and bounds. Jade Fox, though regarded as the ‘villain’, is perhaps the only ‘victim’ in the film, and by the end you genuinely feel sorry for her: whereas Jen is free-spirited in as much as she’s never bound to any tradition or genuine sifu, Jade is underestimated by the Wudan (‘He’d sleep with me, but he’d never teach me’), and then betrayed by her adopted daughter. ‘You know what poison is?… An eight year old girl full of deceit,’ she says as she’s dying at the end of the film.
So there’s a lot going on here: the relationship between Yu and Li is at the movie’s core, often overshadowed by the misadventures of Jade and Jen, but then running parallel to Yu and Li’s repression is Jen and ‘Dark Cloud’ Lo’s passionate relationship in the Gobi desert, thrown in halfway through the film as a flashback. Where it exceeds expectation is the expert characterisation and plot development, the like of which is absent from many movies of its kind, but this can only be accredited to the fact that, essentially, Crouching Tiger is an American movie, financed by Sony, but filmed in China. Western production values have been thrown in to a Chinese setting, and despite it’s uniquely Chinese traditions of costume and character values, the pacing and story-telling is distinctly western, which goes a long way to explaining why the film is so easily accessible.
To a Chinese audience, the response was less enthusiastic. Much has been made of the fact that the film’s leading actors, Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh, couldn’t speak any Mandarin (the script being read phonetically), while the ideals that the film represents were deemed as ‘old-fashioned’ by the native crowds. Jackie Chan went on record to slate the film, complaining about the overuse of wirework and the fact that it had all been seen before. Indeed, Crouching Tiger owes a lot of its inspiration to the work of Hong Kong directors like King Hu and Chang Cheh, who’s seminal wuxia films were really the springboard for this film. The beautiful fight atop the bamboo forest is a direct nod to Hu’s A Touch of Zen, made in 1969, while the focal point of having strong female characters is a Hong Kong movie trait that stretches way back to the earliest swordplay movies, starring the likes of Angela Mao Ying and, of course, Cheng Pei-pei (Cheng’s role here as Jade Fox is a villainous turn for an actress who made her name in the highly influential Golden Swallow films, another prime target for Crouching Tiger references. Ang Lee calls Cheng the ‘Michelle Yeoh of her day’.) Leon Hunt says that the film shares the same general motifs as the early wuxia films – ‘a stolen sword, deadly poisons, secret Taoist sects, a heroine who dresses as a boy,’ (2004:118) something Ang Lee would later claim to being ‘cliches that I had to put in.’ (DVD audio commentary). Certain scenes, particularly the obligatory teahouse fight featuring infamous Chinese bandits with names like ‘Flying Cougar Li Yan’ and ‘Shining Pheonix Mountain Gou’, are handled so well they feel more like a homage rather than a parody of ‘clichés’.
Indeed, it was Ang Lee’s upbringing watching these classic films that made him want to visit such well-grounded territory, and given his track record as one of the world’s most accomplished directors of art-house romantic dramas, the risk involved was undeniable. Given that the kung fu film has seen countless incarnations in its day, Ang was determined to bring something new to a genre that was gradually invading the public consciousness once again, with successful films like The Matrix and Jackie Chan’s success in Hollywood. ‘There’s a part of me that feels, unless you make a martial arts film, you are not a real filmmaker,’ Ang says, which is a highly credible response to a genre which is often disregarded as simply gratuitous entertainment. To say that the movie suffers from clichés isn’t necessarily a bad thing, nor is it even that big an issue: Ang rewrites the way kung fu movies are customarily made, and it’s so refreshing, and exhilarating, to see the genre dealt with in such a way. You have to wait a good twenty minutes before the first fight scene, and the ending is downbeat and contemplative, no drawn-out twenty-minute showdown between good and evil, just a questionable conclusion that’ll leave you guessing, much more in keeping with the mood of the film.
Perhaps the key to its immortality as an all-time screen classic (not just a martial arts classic) is its highly accomplished cast and crew. The biggest acclaim went to 18-year-old débutante Zhang Ziyi (pictured left), who commands the screen with her beautiful looks and fiery charm. A dancer by nature, Zhang (in a role initially offered to Taiwanese starlet Shu Qi) gives a heartfelt and powerful performance that, at times, encompasses the movie, even overshadowing the roles of Yeoh and Yun-fat. Continuing her work with some of China’s most noted art directors, she’s now a firm favourite with Zhang Yimou, and more recently, Wong Kar Wai, and is enjoying her success as probably the most widely photographed young Chinese actress in the world today. Chow does well as the noble Li Mui Bai, given that he’d never even picked up a sword before this film, though it makes you wonder what Jet Li would have done with the role had he not turned it down. But, for my money, Michelle Yeoh is the real treasure here, towering over the film with an awesome screen performance and presence that she’s never really been afforded the opportunity to display before. Her determination to complete the product was such that she even battled through reconstructive knee surgery after an on-set accident during the first week of filming!
Of the behind-the-scenes team, perhaps the most influential member is action director Yuen Woo-ping, whose sterling seal of approval dominates every ravishing frame of the fight sequences. Yuen can be viewed as a one-man revolutionist who’s single-handedly brought kung fu back into the public domain, with links heralding back to the original Wong Fei-hung films with father Simon Yuen, to the kung fu comedy boom in Hong Kong in the late 70s, to independent actioners in the 80s and the ‘new wave’ of traditional martial arts films in the early 90s. His choreography has progressed along with the industry, and moved through slapstick gimmickry and old school form-based kung fu to the quick editing, wirework-enhanced films of Tsui Hark and Jet Li, which is what Crouching Tiger most resembles. His recent influence in Hollywood through international successes like the Hong Kong films Iron Monkey and Fist of Legend has seen him collaborate with the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix) and Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill), bringing his wealth of experience to an audience only just familiarising themselves with his talents. He’s given a lot more screen time here, however, and this has the best choreography over any of his other international hits, but it also focuses heavily on his wirework expertise which are breathtakingly timed, well executed and just invigorating to watch. The lengthy fight over the rooftops of the General’s palace is particularly awesome, but the stand-out scene features Li Mui Bai and Jen battling atop a bamboo forest, gently flying through the branches and attacking the trunks of the trees with their kicks. If you hadn’t seen this sort of thing before, then you can begin to understand why this film was so generously received.
Numerous awards flew in the direction of the film’s cinematographer, Peter Pau (The Bride with White Hair, among others), who’s films are so often filled with a wonderful visual flair it’s easy to regard them as instant classics. His attention to detail and superb way of framing each exotic Chinese location (plus the CGI shots of buildings and villages) is so lavishly meticulous it’s a wonder at times you’re watching a movie, and not just a collection of portraits stolen from Kurosawa’s bedroom. Tan Dun also received numerous accolades for his impressive percussive soundtrack, complemented by cello solos from Yo-Yo Ma. During the fight scenes, the music literally commentates over the action: pounding, innovative, reflective and emotional.
Just about every aspect of this movie is first-class, and I’m not even saying that from a kung fu movie perspective. Ang Lee’s masterpiece (and it is, guys, lets face it) is a trend-setting global phenomenon, and has gone a long way in helping us to buy those rare John Liu movies on DVD that we’ve always wanted. Think about that next time you’re in Blockbuster. It’s true. Without this film, kung fu movies wouldn’t have reached the dizzying heights of popularity that they are today, and countless US blockbusters wouldn’t be scrimping wirework ideas and kung fu shapes from Chinese directors who first pioneered these techniques many, many years ago. Deeply heartfelt and stylishly emotive, this is one you could watch, and should watch, over and over again.
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Often cited in top hundred polls of the best films ever made, this multi award winning cross-genre classic not only revived the .jpg)
Crouching Tiger can be seen as the start of a massive transitional period for martial arts film, when kung fu movies took a giant, high-flying leap into the mainstream. Its immense success (over forty awards, including four Oscars) was unheard of for a film of its kind, while its strong narrative and deep metaphorical subtext meant that film scholars and the general public alike could connect with the universal truth of its story-telling, quite an accomplishment for a genre film desperately trying to shrug off its B-movie history, and even more of an achievement when considering it’s filmed entirely in China with actors speaking an outdated version of Mandarin. On paper, it doesn’t quite look like a film that would be a smash hit all over the world, but Crouching Tiger is an experience like no other, and given that the majority of western cinema goers had never really seen anything like this before (let alone on a scale and budget of this magnitude) it’s clear to see why so many people could connect with it. Put frankly, even hardened chopsocky fanatics will admit that this film just blows your head off. 
Even the character of Jade Fox isn’t spared a deep interpretation, with Ang spinning the Master/Pupil narrative on its head. Jade entices Jen with ‘dreams of the jianghu underworld’, but her illiteracy means that she is unable to read the rest of a stolen Wudan manual, while Jen progresses in leaps and bounds. Jade Fox, though regarded as the ‘villain’, is perhaps the only ‘victim’ in the film, and by the end you genuinely feel sorry for her: whereas Jen is free-spirited in as much as she’s never bound to any tradition or genuine 
Perhaps the key to its immortality as an all-time screen classic (not just a martial arts classic) is its highly accomplished cast and crew. The biggest acclaim went to 18-year-old débutante Zhang Ziyi (pictured left), who commands the screen with her beautiful looks and fiery charm. A dancer by nature, Zhang (in a role initially offered to Taiwanese starlet Shu Qi) gives a heartfelt and powerful performance that, at times, encompasses the movie, even overshadowing the roles of Yeoh and Yun-fat. Continuing her work with some of China’s most noted art directors, she’s now a firm favourite with Zhang Yimou, and more recently, Wong Kar Wai, and is enjoying her success as probably the most widely photographed young Chinese actress in the world today. Chow does well as the noble Li Mui Bai, given that he’d never even picked up a sword before this film, though it makes you wonder what Jet Li would have done with the role had he not turned it down. But, for my money, Michelle Yeoh is the real treasure here, towering over the film with an awesome screen performance and presence that she’s never really been afforded the opportunity to display before. Her determination to complete the product was such that she even battled through reconstructive knee surgery after an on-set accident during the first week of filming! 
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