Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a moving picture in the truest and purest sense of the term.

At every twist and turn, it moves the audience to cheers, tears, gasps or sighs. It is a sumptuous feast for the eyes, ears and mind that is at one moment a dazzling action adventure and the next a beautiful, tender love story.

Growing up in Taiwan in the 1960s, Lee was fed a steady diet of martial arts extravaganzas.

They were the soap operas he watched on TV and the films he saw at the cinema.

It has been his life-long dream to create one of these action melodramas.

Crouching Tiger has its roots in these traditional Chinese melodramas, but Lee is a master craftsman who ups the ante on the action and the drama.

To help him create the mind-boggling, breath-taking action sequences in Crouching Tiger, Lee turned to Yuen Wo-ping who choreographed the fight sequences in The Matrix.

Each sequence is like a spectacular ballet.

Characters glide up the sides of building and tip-toe across roof tops. They spin like tops into the air and even duel on the upper most branches of a forest.

To compliment Wo-ping's work, Lee takes an operatic approach to the film's drama and romance.

These are emotions as vast as the deserts where they are nurtured and as multi-layered as the forests and lush valleys where they eventually play themselves out.

The plot is a familiar one for Chinese martial arts films.

There's an evil sorceress, a magical sword, forbidden loves and unrequited loves. The forces of evil and good are battling for the soul of a beautiful young woman.

Jen (Zhang Ziyi) is the daughter of an aristocrat, who has been secretly counselled in a forbidden martial art by her governess who is really the infamous assassin Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei).

The wise master Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat) is determined to put an end to Jade Fox's reign of evil.

His greatest ally Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) is also his one true love, but he has been unable to make his feelings known because she was once betrothed to his best friend who was killed by Jade Fox.

It's pure matinee fun but Lee makes what could have been corny so credible and poignant.

Yun Fat and Yeoh bring such dignity to their roles and Ziyi is a dynamo. She can be spoiled and coy, but when she falls for the desert thief Lo (Chang Chen) she becomes a voluptuous temptress.

Crouching Tiger is an intoxicating blend of action, romance and drama that kicks butt one moment, then tugs the heartstrings the next.

(This film is rated PG)

More Movie Reviews