Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

You don’t so much watch Ang Lee’s epic “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” as immerse yourself in it, allowing it to wash over you like a flood. From the opening moment, the images, costumes, and music engulf you. This picture had received the best buzz of any movie that nobody had seen, since it started off playing in about one theater in the entire country. Even now it is advancing only slowly, “platforming” in a few theaters in order to build word of mouth. Let me assure you that it lives up to its billing. Lee himself coined the phrase used above about Jane Austen meeting Bruce Lee, and the analogy is apt. For the movie (which, by the way, is in Chinese with English subtitles) presents fight scenes of blinding speed and virtuosity, using both bare hands as well as any number of weapons, alternating with scenes of genteel romance concealing repressed passion. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (based upon a book by Du Lu Wang) opens on a serene note, with Shu Lien (the fabulous Michelle Yeoh) returning home from a transport mission. She runs a security service, a kind of Brinks Transport of China.

Once home, she receives an unexpected visit from Li Mu Bai (Hong Kong stalwart Chow Yun Fat), who has decided to give up his life as a legendary “Wudon” warrior. In order to facilitate this change, he asks Shu Lien to take his magical sword, “Green Destiny” (think of a Chinese Excalibur) to Peking as a gift for the venerable Sir Te. Li Mu Bai hopes that by divesting himself of Green Destiny, he can divest himself of his violent past. Alas, it is not so simple as that. Once in Peking, the sword is stolen by a mysterious thief gifted in the ways of the Wudon. By now Shu Lien has joined Li Mu Bai in Peking, and they join forces to recover the stolen Green Destiny. Their quest to return the sword to its rightful owner drives the rest of the film. It turns out that Jade Fox, Li Mu Bai’s mortal enemy, and the killer of his master, is somehow involved in the theft of the sword.

Meanwhile, Sir Te is visited by a government official and his daughter Jen (Ziyi Zhang) who turns out to be more formidable than her porcelain doll appearance would suggest. Jen is betrothed to a man she does not love, and she envies Shu Lien her adventurous life, notwithstanding Shu Lien’s description of the hardships of such a life. Not the least of these hardships is the unspoken love between Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai, which serves as the tragic underpinning of the story. One look at Michelle Yeoh’s grave, lovely face as she tells Jen the tale speaks volumes. Although Li Mu Bai is the nominal hero, it is the three women--Jade Fox, Shu Lien, and Jen--who are the real force in the picture. They whirl and spin and play off of each other figuratively and literally, forming alliances and then squaring off in ferocious battle. The movie’s focus on the issues with which these women must contend in a world dominated by rigid codes of conduct lends it its spare, Austen-like sensibility. Is there a director working today with greater range than Ang Lee? If so, I can't name one.

His pictures, which include the Hong Kong trio of “Pushing Hands,” The Wedding Banquet,” and “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman,” followed by “The Ice Storm,” “Sense and Sensibility,” and “Ride With the Devil,” span a wide array of times, places, and themes. His ability to work across genres serves him well in this movie, as he effortlessly weaves together all of the disparate stories it contains. Lee has such control of his medium that he is able to stop the narrative in the middle in order to tell a whole different story, which he then links back to the main thread without skipping a beat. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is a romance (or two), an adventure, and a martial arts thriller all at once. It maintains a childlike fascination with secret manuals, rituals, and powers, coupling it with the most fantastic sorts of action in which the laws of gravity do not quite apply. (The sequences involving the rooftop chase and the battle in the bamboo have been justifiably acclaimed as instant classics.) The fight scenes, choreographed by the masterful Wu-ping Yuen, are thrilling, rivaling those in any martial arts picture, but they are also strikingly beautiful.

At the same time, Lee manages to wring real emotion out of the conflicts between his characters and achieves a true poignancy in the end. If you believe that movies, at their best, should transport you to another place and time, then you will revel in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” When it finally opens in wide release, run, don’t walk, to the biggest screened theater you can find, and enjoy the journey. (12/19/2000)