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Dom Robinson reviews

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Distributed by

Columbia TriStar


Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is the Chinese equivalent of Gladiator - both were hyped beyond mention, scooped a few Oscars, but are the combination of a handful of impressive fight sequences linked together by some of the dullest talkie moments ever created.

The plot itself is pretty straight-forward. Warrior Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh, who had her turn as a Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies) is to deliver the sword to end all swords - the Green Destiny. It's a piece of work that should be marketed on QVC given that it can cut through anything without question, but it belongs to Sir Te (Sihung Lung) and Shu Lien will make sure he gets it.

Oh, but horror upon horrors when it gets stolen by a mystery thief, who might not be so much of a mystery because veteran baddie Jade Fox (Pei-pei Cheng, who looks like TV cook Nancy Lam having an extremely bad hair day) is in the frame, but isn't she a bit old for all this? Only the most clueless of viewers wouldn't have twigged that it had something to do with Jen (Ziyi Zhang), a young girl who is also a guest of Sir Te and complains that she has nothing to do all day but marvel at the feats of her new warrior "sister" Shu Lien.

Also throwing himself into the mix, literally, is Chow Yun-Fat as Shu Lien's master Li Mu Bai and a man with whom she is besotted, which could lead to a possible romantic interest, but you can rest assured that there aren't any shagging shenanigans in this 12-certificate film. Chen Chang also appears as Lo, Jen's other half, convincing her to return home back to the place where she belongs.


film pic

"I challenge you to 'Rock, Scissors, Paper'..."


As befitting any Carl Douglas revival, everyone's kung-fu fighting but with a difference, given that all the major fight scenes involve dancing and pirouetting over rooves, as Shu Lien chases after the initially-anonymouse and elusive thief, although we know the walking on walls and floors almost-simultaneously was done years ago with Lionel Richie's Dancing on the Ceiling video; through trees and across lakes for Lu Mu Bai and Jen, with invisible wires a must because you'd have to otherwise be superhuman to perform the same moves; and a showdown between the two leading ladies in the dojo. However, while these are unbelievably well-choreographed and scripted, for me I just couldn't stop laughing because they were so over-the-top that I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough.

Another of the film's downfalls is that it didn't have a story you could easily care about and, with the occasional cheesy dialogue and behaviour that wouldn't seem out of place in the FMV sequences of a computer game, it actually put me to sleep. The 20-minute sequence, which gets a whole chapter to itself, about how Jen and Lo got it together didn't help matters either.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon won two Golden Globes, four BAFTAs and four Academy Awards.


film pic

Despite Jen's efforts to look sultry,
you can't hide a fart.


I had no problems with the picture quality whatsoever, despite the many dark scenes on view. Presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, the anamorphic print is free of artifacts. The average bitrate is 5.14Mb/s, briefly peaking above 8Mb/s.

Congrats to Columbia as Dolby Digital 5.1 comes in both the original Mandarin and a dubbed English, although we know the two leads can speak English so I would put money on those being their own accents doing in the talking, even if they don't synchronise with the picture, not that I found this a major problem with this movie. Split-surrounds aren't always used, but the sound FX do their job when required.


film pic

"If I squint a bit, I can just make out some semblance of a plot."


First up are four Theatrical Trailers, a 2-minute US theatrical trailer and a 90-second International trailer both in non-anamorphic 16:9, followed by trailers for other films: Vertical Limit (2 mins, anamorphic 16:9) and Not One Less (90 secs, 4:3 fullscreen).

Unleashing Dragons: The Making Of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon runs for 21 minutes and contains chat from the cast and crew interspered with 2.35:1 non-anamorphic and subtitled clips from the film, while you can also spend 14 minutes in the company of A Conversation with Michelle Yeoh, for which she brushes her hair and puts a bit of lippy on to become quite attractive for a recent change. 4:3-cropped clips are also included along with on-set footage.

The Photo Montage runs for 7 minutes with scores of film stills are zoomed in and out to the movie's score and there are Talent Files for director Ang Lee, its stars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh, screenwriter James Schamus who has written most of Ang Lee's output and fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping who also worked on The Matrix. Finally, there is a feature-length audio commentary from Ang Lee and James Schamus.

As this is a Columbia DVD we have the usual 28 chapters and subtitles in 11 languages : English, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Portuguese, Hebrew, Hindi, Bulgarian, Greek and Arabic. The main menu is nicely animated and scored with clips from the film and inbetween each menu comes further clips intersliced.


film pic

Day one of filming and Michelle Yeoh's
pelvis locked at the wrong moment.


FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS



OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.

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