My Favourite Movies: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

I think that this movie was my introduction to Chinese cinema that made me fall in love so much with foreign film. I’d heard of it vaguely when my friend RCA proposed that we go along and see it in a small independent cinema locally. She was always dragging me along to such things, being the adventurous type and I think I was her project for a while to spread culture amongst the deserving. So I went along in the hope of a good film and in the expectation of a good evening. I got both.

Crouching Tiger is basically about two entangled and tragic love stories set in ancient China. On one side is Li Mu Bai (played by the outstanding Chow Yun Fat) a master swordsman and Yu Shu Lien (played by the superb Michelle Yeou), on the other is Jen Yu (played by the stunning Zhang Ziyi) and her outlaw lover Lo ‘Dark Cloud’ (played by Chen Chang). What ties them all together – apart from love – is a 400 year old sword called Jade Destiny which is owned by Li and stolen (twice) by Jen. Jen it transpires has been trained in special martial arts techniques despite being a woman and wants the sword to help her carve out her own path in life rather than the one her parents have mapped out for her. Li wants to get the sword back and stop Jen hurting anyone in her efforts to free herself from obligations to her family whilst coming to terms with his own past and making up for lost time with Yu who he has been in love with for years.

Not only is this a superb and subtle tale of love unspoken and love hidden from view it’s also a great martial arts film with some of the best sword fighting I’ve ever seen. Some of it does come across as a little silly – particularly the ‘fight’ in the bamboo trees and the running across both water and roof tops – but I took this as part of Chinese cinema rather than over exuberance with wire-work. I was particularly impressed with the two women fighting both in the initial roof top chase and at Yu’s home in the courtyard. Not only are the fights simply outstanding the cinematography portraying the fights is beyond impressive and adds a great deal to the scenes. Even the incidental music (to say nothing of the often beautiful scenery) adds to the overall effect and really brings that by-gone era of China to life. There is also a fair amount of Chinese slapstick humour provided by the supporting cast which had me smiling more than once and must have had a Chinese audience rolling about laughing.

But for me it was the three stars Chow Yun Fat as the serious sword master examining his life choices and finding great fault with the path he’s taken, Michelle Yeou as the equally serious and successful businesswoman who suffers because of her perceived duty to he dead fiancé and, of course, the gorgeous Zhang Ziyi as the headstrong and impulsive young woman who will do anything to get her own way no matter the cost to those around her. Oh, and if you watch this movie I do recommend you see it with the subtitles on. There’s almost nothing worse than a dubbed foreign film. You just lose so much and the English/American accents really grate. I don’t know why they even bother with them.