| Jane Austen chopsocky
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
Starring Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh
Directed by Ang Lee
Starts Friday, January 12
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is nothing if not a stunningly photographed epic of love (both the requited and unrequited varieties), power (the good and bad, the pure and corrupt kinds), and honour (lots of it).
The film is a sweeping tale that takes place in a make-believe version of ancient China and begins with legendary martial arts master Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat) asking his longtime friend Yu Shu Lien (Michele Yeoh) to deliver his famous sword, Green Destiny, to an old family friend in Beijing. He explains that he is tired of fighting and is putting down his sword to follow a new path in life. Soon the sword is stolen from the compound in Beijing where it has been placed, Li Mu Bai is back in action, the unfulfilled love between him and Yu Shu Lien smoulders and the fisticuffs begin.
Along the way we are treated to a slide show of stunning panoramic vistas, showdowns with the nasty (and bitter) villain Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei), demonstrations of the incredible power of teenage girls, twists and turns aplenty – and fists, feet, legs, arms etc. of fury. To top it all off and cement the whole thing together, we are given the film’s real nail-biter – the agonizingly bittersweet inability of Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien to drop the social conventions, open up a little and admit their love for one another – an emotional exercise not unlike Chinese water torture.
In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, director Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus have endeavoured to blend two seemingly opposite genres into one. The Western themes and refinement of the Jane Austen adaptation and the crazy action hysterics of Asian fantasy martial arts films are brought together to create a more refined and emotional action flick and, conversely, a more action-driven melodrama of manners. Lee definitely has the background and experience for this brave experiment. Having grown up in Taiwan and having previously directed a version of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, he moves between the two with a certain adeptness.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has gotten off to a box office start which is the envy of all. People are flocking to this non-English language film like they’ve never flocked before, and critics can’t find enough stars or thumbs with which to express their pleasure.
However, Crouching Tiger leaves this reviewer perplexed – I do not profess to be an expert in Hong Kong or Chinese cinema or even Jane Austen adaptations, but although the makers of this film may well have created a successful cross-over piece, they have also come up with an essentially watered-down version of both parent stocks. Although the fight sequences, choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping (The Matrix) have a fluid Zen quality that is probably unmatched, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon never lets itself go in the fun and rollicking way fantasy martial arts films like Chinese Ghost Story, Swordsman II and Dragon Inn do. In restraining itself, it loses some of the pure entertainment value, some of the insane inventiveness and the strange eroticism of the gender-bending sexual tension those films flaunt so well. Although I will have to respectfully disagree with the tsunami of hype over Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I have to state that it may be the most distinct film you will see for a long time and perhaps it will draw attention to a group of films that have never really been fully appreciated in North America (and I don’t mean films based on Jane Austen novels). For those who like their Austen with a foot in the face instead of in the mouth. |
