The Great Escape

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

You don't have to like kung-fu to appreciate Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; if anything, Ang Lee's latest masterwork may finally explain it all for you. Director Lee's genre-busting career includes such films as The Ice Storm, Sense and Sensibility, and Eat Drink Man Woman, and with Crouching Tiger, he succeeds once more, creating a film that's dramatic and dazzling -- a major triumph of style and substance. That's due in part to the director's heavyweight collaborators: Cellist Yo-Yo Ma wrote and performed the haunting score, master martial arts choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping handled the breathtaking fight scenes, and Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh appear in starring roles. Crouching Tiger is the story of Jen (Zhang Zi Yi), a beautiful martial arts prodigy torn between her lover and her ambition to kick serious ass. Imagine The English Patient with better special effects than The Matrix. Imagine a kung-fu movie with top-notch production values. Oh, never mind -- you could never imagine what Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon looks like. It's that original. (Jan. 12)