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Film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Director: Ang Lee
Country: Taiwan / China
Released: July 2000
Runtime: 120 minutes
Genre: Martial Arts Movie
Studio: Sony, Edko, China Film Co-Production Corporation
Influenced: Zhang Yimou, Tarantino, Stephen Chow, Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark
Ang Lee was inspired to make the era-defining Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon after reading Wang Dulu's novel, which was the fourth book in a series of five called the Crane Iron pentalogy. Genre-wise, it’s a novel mix of wuxia (martial arts and chivalry) and romantic epic. The film blended traditional wuxia elements with a more emotional and character-driven narrative, which was a departure from the genre's typical focus on action. Another innovative element of the film was its international cast and crew, with the film a complex co-production between Taiwan, Hong Kong, USA and China. Controversially, Ang Lee recruited two Cantonese-speaking actors to play beloved Chinese mainland heroes – apparently, to Mandarin speakers, Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh's accents sound absurd – and the pan-Asian cast includes actors from Malaysia (Yeoh), Hong Kong (Chow Yun-Fat) and Taiwan (Chang Chen). Another of the lead roles, Jen Yu, is played by Beijing native Zhang Ziyi in a breakout performance.
Set in 19th-century Qing Dynasty China, the story revolves around the theft of a legendary sword, the Green Destiny, and the various characters who become entangled in its fate. The film follows the journey of two warriors, Yu Shu Lien (Yeoh) and Li Mu Bai (Yun-Fat), as they attempt to recover the sword while dealing with their own unspoken feelings for each other, and a young thief, Jen Yu, who is drawn into their world and falls in love with Li Mu Bai. Although it's an action movie, the film opens with a long dialogue scene, largely put there for a western audience, which helps to set the context of the movie and reveal the motivations of the warriors. An impressive, expensive-looking special effects shot also establishes the Beijing setting. Locations for the film were drawn from all over mainland China, including the stunning Yellow Mountain range in the east and Xinjiang province in the west. I particularly love the epic grandeur of the horseback scenes set in Mongolia, which used local extras from Ürümqi, and the tavern fighting scene with all the silly fighting names (like Shining Phoenix Mountain Gou).
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's success was partly thanks to the innovative martial arts choreography of Yuen Wo-Ping, who introduced wire-fu techniques that allowed characters to perform gravity-defying stunts and martial arts sequences. The characters are not flying as such, it's more akin to walking on the moon, a weightlessness brought on by them learning an enlightened form of kung fu. Even the cameramen had to wear wires to film the scenes where the actors leap over the roofs of the houses and, if you look closely enough in some scenes, you can see the wires. The bamboo forest fight scene, an obvious tribute to King Hu’s A Touch of Zen (1971), is one of the most iconic moments in the film, featuring breathtaking acrobatics and combat choreography. Ang Lee also did research on historical Chinese weapons and chose some very interesting specimens for the movie, while Zhang Ziyi was told to spend a long time learning calligraphy for her role, and all this work gives the film an air of authenticity.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon received widespread critical acclaim and won four Oscars: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Art Direction, Best Original Score and Best Cinematography. It also received numerous other awards and nominations, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, while also having a significant impact on the international recognition of Asian and wuxia cinema. Ang Lee faced challenges in finding financing for the film because it was not in English, and many potential investors were concerned about its appeal to Western audiences, but his persistence was vindicated and the director would go to have an illustrious career in Hollywood, including Brokeback Mountain (2005). Many similar films would follow in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's wake, including Zhang Yimou movies Hero (epic but cold in tone) and House of Flying Daggers (similar style but more contrived storyline), but none ever matched its masterful combination of epic sweep and careful attention to detail, soundtracked by Yo-Yo Ma's evocative cello.
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