Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

D: Ang Lee; with Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Zi Yi, Chang Chen.

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)

(Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon made its regional premiere at the Austin Film Festival.)

This article appears in November 24 • 2000.

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