Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Built on a theme of resistance to gender inequality, Ang Lee’s 2000 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon builds the fourth novel in Wang Dulu’s Crane-Iron Pentalogy into a terrific motion picture. Lee, known for his patience and carefully constructed films, is well in control of this film and delivers breath-taking action sequences with minimal special effects alongside two deeply meaningful love stories and a slight critique of the conception of ancient patriarchal roles.

In placing three female characters in prominent ass-kicking roles, Lee is making no bones about what his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is really all about. We have Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei) denied entrance to the legendary Wudan monastery on the basis of her gender, so she steals the training manual from the master after poisoning him. Her determination to learn the skills herself propels her bitter journey through life.

We also have Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi) as a young woman on the verge of her wedding. Her life is firmly out of her hands, apparently, and she wishes to be free from the role her family has assigned to her. When she talks to wandering warriors, she is envious of their existence and their freedom. When she is taken captive in the desert by Dark Cloud (Chang Chen) she falls in love with him and becomes engrossed in his lifestyle despite a necessity to return to how things were. She also threatens the male-dominated structure by stealing the Green Destiny, a legendary sword passed among male warriors.

Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) is the third female leading character. Her love for the hero Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) remains hidden much in the same way his reciprocated feelings remain hidden. But she is respectful of the male-dominated world, advising Jen Yu to maintain a sense of order towards her family and generally follow the rules. She doesn’t challenge the limitations of the power structure, especially those that cause her love for Li Mu Bai to go unrequited, and in this she is ironically the film’s most passive character.

Merely categorizing Lee’s picture as a martial arts film is an error, I think. This is much more than that, yet the martial arts are beautiful and akin to musical numbers in a theatre production. They highlight what we already know and draw a more dynamic portrait of some of the story’s emotional complexities. Consider, for instance, when Yu Shu Lien fights Jen Yu the second time. Yu Shu Lien loses control and fights forcefully, swinging heavy weapons in her direction and even losing her balance attempting to manipulate one. This occurs because she is, in her mind, protecting the honour of Li Mu Bai.

Yuen Wo Ping’s action choreography could fill volumes in the history of film. His work here is expectedly fantastic, as the wire movements of the characters are seamless and the lack of computer technology running assistance is admirable. The flight of the characters, the running up walls, and the lively combat sequences are all simply dazzling. The tree fight sequence is astonishing in every way, as Yuen Wo Ping’s choreography creates a sort of dance between Li Mu Bai and Jen Yu. It’s a treat to experience.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Taiwan and won Peter Pau a cinematography Oscar, too. To say the award was well deserved for Pau would be an understatement. His ability to capture the grand scope of the project is complemented beautifully by his capturing of the smaller moments. His work, along with the Tan Dun score, creates an elegant mood for the entire project that helps deepen the bigger moments and grants the film a character all its own.

With one of the biggest actors in the world in Chow Yun-Fat and mesmerizing fight sequences, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a true spectacle. But for me it was the deeper moments and Lee’s great attention to subtlety that really puts this motion picture over the top. It is not perfect, for certain, and there are a few pacing and editing issues that could have used some work, but Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is still as close to a cinematic masterpiece as it gets.

Trailer: