Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Directed by Ang Lee
Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically-skilled, teenage nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.
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9 films that influenced Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
What critics say influenced Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Actually, the closest cinematic parallel to Crouching Tiger’s mystical Wudan Mountain warrior-heroes, with their ability to transcend physical limitations, may be the Jedi knights of the Star Wars mythology.
Like Star Wars, its scope is operatic, larger than life; it is meant to be seen as a spectacle, but there also is an underlying base built on the principles of honor and love.
It's a feeling akin to seeing Peter Pan fly for the first time or watching the first light-saber duel in ''Star Wars.''
This is what the “Star Wars” prequels should have been.
The high-flying action sequences have gotten a lot of ink, but again, if you've seen earlier works like John Woo's Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1978) or Ronny Yu's The Bride with White Hair (1993), there's not a lot here to boggle your eyes or mind.
Cinematography by Peter Pau ("The Bride with White Hair") captures the action while also broadening scope to capture breathtaking scenery in both green, misty mountain terrain and sun scorched deserts.
Today it’s generally viewed as a precursor to the cinema of actor-director Stephen Chow, fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping, and everything else made possible in the wake of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
As a result, audiences have become familiar with the visual extravagance and narrative audacity that are commonplace in these films, one of the factors that might account for the success of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).
The high-flying action sequences have gotten a lot of ink, but again, if you've seen earlier works like John Woo's Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1978) or Ronny Yu's The Bride with White Hair (1993), there's not a lot here to boggle your eyes or mind.
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Even though my expectations were high, the execution of this sequence exceeded them in every way -- not since Jackie Chans Drunken Master 2 (Miramaxed this year under the title The Legend of Drunken Master) has hand-to-hand combat been choreographed with such beautiful ferocity.
For that reason alone - the boundary-bending style of the film - it deserves a place among genre-defining epics such as "Unforgiven", "The Godfather" and "Spartacus".
For one thing, it's going to introduce a lot of people who wouldn't have seen Hard Boiled or Supercop to the undeniable star power of Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh (both of whom have been ill-served in their forays into Yankee films).
Hard Boiled stars the charismatic Hong Kong megastar Chow Yun-Fat (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as Tequila, a tough-as-nails cop prone to gunfights and late nights in jazz clubs.
He may have proven his acting mettle in many other movies – from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to Confucius – but my favourite of his action movies (and of his pairings with Woo) has got to be Hard Boiled .
It was directed by Taiwanese-born filmmaker Ang Lee, but a cursory look at his résumé — Sense and Sensibility (1995), a Jane Austin comedy of manners; The Ice Storm, a dark look at disordered relationships in 1970s America; Ride With the Devil, a Civil War tale — reveals little beyond the fact that the director doesn’t like to repeat himself.
Director Ang Lee ("The Ice Storm," "Sense and Sensibility") is a newcomer to the genre, but he masters it on the first attempt.
One of today’s most diverse directors, Ang Lee ( Sense and Sensibility , The Ice Storm ), has not only found the perfect venue for such combat – the classic samurai movie – but has injected his action with poetry and meaning.
Director Ang Lee, better known for introspective, down-to-earth dramas like "The Ice Storm" and "Sense and Sensibility", has said that he grew up with a love for martial arts films.
He followed his first three Taiwanese features (the "Father Knows Best"trilogy of "Pushing Hands," "The Wedding Banquet" and " Eat Drink Man Woman") with the English-language trio of "Sense and Sensibility," "The Ice Storm" and "Ride With the Devil."
For those of you stunned that Ang Lee, who directed the Jane Austen comedy Sense and Sensibility and the Connecticut anomie drama The Ice Storm , helmed this majestic enterprise, the movie has several Lee trademarks, positive and otherwise, that verify the identity of its maker.
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He covered his ass by hiring arguably the best fight choreographer in Hong Kong, Yuen Woo-Ping, who did "The Matrix" and Jet Li's "Fist of Legend."