Wo hu cang long / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) – 3/5

Visually quite wonderful, pretty fine for the rest

„Wo hu cang long“ or „Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon“ is a co-production between three Asian countries and the United States of America and this film is almost entirely in the Mandarin language. Here in Germany, they also went with the title „Tiger & Dragon“ and i think this is really as bad and superficial as it gets to only mention two animals (well, one animal and one fantasy creature) that are associated with Asia. The main reason, however, is that the entire idea and metaphor is lost this way. I learnt that crouching tiger stands for the vast amount of people doing nothing and they simply accept their fate while the hidden dragon may be one person or more who stand up and fight to make things better. So much for the title meaning. The director here is Ang Lee of course, at some point surely Asia’s biggest and most successful filmmaker, even if he probably is not anymore. But he won two Best Director Oscars, both after this film, and for his effort here, he scored his first Oscar nomination(s). He is getting closer to 70 now. I would not have been too mad with him winning here too and it would not have been undeserving. I do not share the praise for this film in all departments, but I think the direction is truly outstanding. He was maybe not too far away from the win, Best Director of 2000 was fairly open from what it looks like and there was a rare split between Best Picture and Best Director which is more common nowadays than it was back then. So yeah, this film is 22 years old now and I was lucky enough to watch it at a movie theater tonight. It surely deserves to be seen on the big screen. I was also glad that the room was really packed and they sold 90% of the tickets I think and could have sold more if it wasn’t for pandemic-related hygiene regulations. With the cast, I cannot say too much: Chow-Yun Fat created a very iconic character here. Michelle Yeoh was already a Bond girl a few years before this movie and this one here is surely among her biggest triumphs. Same can be said about her most recent release. I wonder if she eventually manages an Oscar nomination one day. Ziyi Zhang is a star in her own right and she is also breathtakingly stunning here. So is Yeoh kind of. Chang Chen you also see on the poster, but his role was smaller than the other three and he is only supporting. I don’t know anything else about the actor, but he did fine too.

This film won four Oscars, namely art direction/set decoration, cinematography, score and foreign language feature film. I guess the latter most people expected the film to win with the Best Picture nomination, but a quartet of trophies was probably still something that not too many would have predicted. Gigantic triumph for Ang Lee here and I am happy for him. Also pretty cool that he returned to making films at his home when he already had an international breakthrough before that in America. He surely returned for a high-profile project here, otherwise he wouldn’t have. I must say that this film has a lot depth to offer story-wise, but also keeps it kinda simple. Aside from the four main characters, there aren’t too many others and as I stated already, I also could have said three main characters. The secondary male character is only featured a lot in the desert segment with Ziyi Zhang and even there he clearly plays second fiddle to her. It was still for me the moment when the film really gained steam. I must say everything before that did not impress me too much, like the scenes that involve the sword theft, but there with this segment in the desert, the movie really got better from my perspective. It was good and solid before that, don’t get me wrong, but this is then where it increases the level to somewhere between good and great. I thought the depiction of romance there after the two fought all the time before that was also really high-level and you could feel their passion in the movie theater. Well done by Lee and the actors too of course. Before that, we sometimes also do not know exactly that the young woman is actually the one who is the secret intruder as we only see her with a mask. But the main characters do know right away or at least find out. Look at the brief scene in which Yeoh’s character drops a cup or something and the young woman catches it with her great reflexes. This young woman has family bonds with the film’s real main antagonist, a woman with the nickname Jade Fox. We do not see a lot of her, but she is maybe the fifth most significant character here or even fourth. This character is also far from forgotten as they just used her name in a fairly new German film that also had some decent success.

I realize I did not talk about the writers yet. Oh well, Lee is not credited as a writer here, but three others are. Two of them are Asian and one is American and at least two of them have worked with Lee on several other occasions, Schamus even to this day as he is part of Lee’s next project too and you can check out the (other) names for yourself if you care. In general, the Asian involvement is of course strong here, not just in terms of cast, but also in terms of crew. Movies about martial arts are nothing new at all. However, this was a daring project because while Asia has released many really good films in the last decades, the martial arts genre has declined and there are not too many productions anymore compared to everything from the second half of the 20th century, but there also really before 1990 or even earlier like the days of Bruce Lee and even these films already had a connection to modern stories like big cities and not highly traditional locations as you find them in this movie that could have taken place several centuries back in the past. This film delivers from all kinds of perspectives, there are maybe even two or three moments when you will laugh or at least smile. I thought it was a bit funny when we see all the guys who got beat up by the young woman. But at the center of it all it is about a lot more, the priceless sword of course, but, much more than that, a lot of it is about romance. Tragic romance actually as we see what happens when in the end two characters in love with each other realize they wasted their lives because they did not find a chance to confess their love to each other and when one is about to die, it is too late. It is a pretty unhappy ending this way, but at the same time it is an inspiration for the younger female character to overcome her anger for the young male character and she goes to see him, so at least these two are apparently happy eventually, so it is a bit of a happy ending. Admittedly, the way in which the young male character was written, was not too inspired. Here and there he felt more like filler material.

Of course, the animal and the fantastic creature, tiger and dragon, do not appear in the film itself. It is really all about human characters only. But it delivers more than enough with these. I must say a few more words about Chow Yun-Fat. I am glad he got first credit here. I thought his character was really epic, everything about him, also the clothes, and I totally would have watched a film only about this character and what he did in the past before this film. I am sure there are really enough interesting stories. He seemed to be always in full control during the fighting sequences, but it was more like his spirit that was invincible and where he drew his excellent technique from. I really loved the moment for example when we see how he has great balance when he fights the woman up there and she is clearly struggling with her position. There was also a brief moment of affection between these two, but it was never a key aspect here. Harmony turned into fighting pretty quickly here. Just look at the lengthy fight sequence between the two women. That was excellent and performed and filmed so well. It does not really get any better. If I have to mention stuff I did not like in terms of that, I would maybe say the few moments in which we see one character point a sword and another character’s throat/neck and for some reason the other character, despite his/her class and talent, does not really fight back as (s)he always did before that. Also, those sequences in which they were basically flying did not do too much for me. An ounce too supernatural for me, but it is not like these scenes were bad or anything, only that these inclusions were not as good as the rest of the movie.

Overall, you will surely agree that this is more of a women-themed movie, not in terms of who should/does watch it, but in terms of the characters. There are probably three female characters that are more interesting than the number-two most interesting male character, even if I would put Yun-Fat’s character above everybody else here. It’s a close contest with Zhang’s admittedly, but the rest no contest. I would so love to watch a film with Chow Yun-Fat’s character from this film where we can see him with his old master and of course this way they could bring back Jade Fox as well for example. But let’s stay with this movie to sum it all up. I am not sure if I would say that all the awards recognition is justified, but I guess it is pretty close to being justified. This film is at times really a joy to watch and if you also get the chance to do so on the big screen, then you should not miss out and take it. This film is still very famous over two decades later and deservedly so. Probably not my favorite movie from Ang Lee, but really only because a lot other stuff he has done is on such a high level and it is not meant in a derogatory way from my side when I say that. On the contrary, I do encourage you to check this one out if you are among those who have not seen it yet. Just like I haven’t until tonight, but I am really glad I went and I am positive you will also not regret this decision. This film gets a thumbs-up from me and that was never in doubt. Not for a second. Go (re)watch it.