Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a sumptuous, sexy, sensational experience that richly deserves to be acclaimed as one of the top films of 2000.
The Academy Awards voters should put aside their usual bias against non-English-language films and nominate this masterpiece for a slew of Oscars, including best picture, best director and -- what the heck -- best everything.
It was shot on staggeringly beautiful locations in China in the Mandarin language (and plays here with English subtitles). It was produced by Taiwanese interests.
But Crouching Tiger is also rooted in Hollywood, and not just because it was co-written by Lee's long-time American collaborator, James Schamus.
Director Lee, a Taiwanese-American filmmaker based in the New York area, is best known for Sense And Sensibility and The Ice Storm. He brings that experience and self-confidence to bear on his Chinese cultural roots here, meticulously crafting an epic that soars onto the screen with both majesty and gung-ho Hollywood enthusiasm.
That is a perfect blend. The technical wizardry of the piece deftly enhances the surprisingly rich mixture of genres. Crouching Tiger is all at once a romance, an ancient historical chronicle, a mythical saga, a treatment of Tao philosophy, a sly comedy and a martial-arts extravaganza.
In all areas, the film operates at the peak of its powers in telling an elaborate tale of adventure, revenge, honour, love and tragedy. Based on a series of novels by Chinese author Wang Du Lu -- including the fourth in the series, which gives the film its title -- the story is too involved to actually describe.
The screen is populated with terrific actors. Even the cameo characters are well-acted and finely drawn. Despite being divided into heroes and villains, the characters are complex, ambiguous and interesting. There are no lame stereotypes.
On the hero side are the elegant Chow Yun Fat and the beguiling Michelle Yeoh, the two catalysts for the plot and one of the key romantic couples in the film. Both of them glow in the emotional passages and kick huge butt in the martial-arts explosions on screen (which are choreographed by the legendary Yuen Wo-Ping of The Matrix fame).
Chow and Yeoh are the mature, thoughtful reservoirs of wisdom in the film. Their youthful counterparts are played by Chang Chen, as the bandit king, and Zhang Ziyi, as the rebel princess. They act first, think later. And they are deeply in love, even though Zhang is betrothed to someone else.
Other key roles include the ultra-vixen Jade Fox, played with malicious delight by Cheng Pei Pei, a popular star of Hong Kong kung-fu movies of the 1960s. She still has the moves.
The fight sequences in Crouching Tiger are some of the most beautiful, balletic and exhilarating ever seen, especially the tree-top tussle between Chow Yun Fat and Zhang Ziyi. What is even more astonishing is that they are all intricately woven into the storytelling and never cheapen the film.
It would be a crime if Oscar does not pay homage to Ang Lee's magnificent accomplishment. In the meantime, it's the year of the tiger-dragon, at least at the bijou.
(This film is rated PG)
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