 Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon |
|
Starring Chow Yun Fat, Chang Chen, Zhang Zi Yi, and Michelle Yeoh. |
| The
best way to describe Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is to call it
a Chinese version of Star Wars. They have the ‘force’ or teaching
from the ‘Wudan School’ that gives them extra special fighting powers and
magic. They have some hunky male stars (“You don’t have to tell me
to like Chow Yun Fat!”) and some beautiful female stars. They have
royalty and intrique, and it is interesting to note how dramatic landscapes
and speeded up martial arts footage can handily compete with high tech
computer animation and special effects. The love stories in Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon play better than the Princess Lea fetishes in
the Star Wars movies. We get one unrequited love story between
the two main characters, and a wild and pure first love story between the
feisty governor’s daughter and the exotic desert warrior. Yummy!
If it wasn’t for all the martial arts stuff, this movie might qualify as
a ‘chick flick,’ even thought the connotation it has earned in the media
is that of an ‘art film.’ Does this mean if you combine sensuality
and romance with violence and action you get art? I think not, so
I reckon back to my Star Wars analogy, using words like swashbuckling,
romantic, fast paced, mystical, heroic, and entertaining to describe this
movie. I give it four stars.
Big Head Review/ August 2001  |
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