“I've already wasted my whole life. I want to tell you with my last breath that I have always loved you. I would rather be a ghost, drifting by your side as a condemned soul, than enter heaven without you. Because of your love, I will never be a lonely spirit.” Li Mu Bai (Chun Yow Fat)
That is the stuff of Asian Romance: lyrical, loving, sacrificial. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a world apart from us: mysticism, leaping in single bounds, binding tradition, and pure love. Not just because it won the four Oscars including best picture is it one of cinema’s great romances, but because with all the magic it presents, love is a real and sometimes agonizing romanticism. In other words, it has everything cinema can offer.
And Michelle Yeoh, coming off her nomination for best actress in Everything Everywhere All at Once, is an anchor as Shu Lien a famed warrior, and also Chow Yun Fat as Mu Bai, a renowned swordsman and the co-sage with Shu. Although they have, in typical Asian secrecy, not professed their love to each other, everyone else knows they are in love.
Like an Eastern Thin-Man couple, they help the search for an ancient sword and the defeat of Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei), an accomplished warrior who killed Mu Bai’s mentor. Bad girl shouldn’t have done that, nor should she have allegedly stolen the sword, Green Destiny.
In a parallel Romeo and Juliet knockoff, Lien’s new young friend Jen (Zhang Ziyi), not quite as innocent as she appears, does not want an arranged marriage but rather to love bandit Lo (Chang Chen). As the older romantic couple tries to help the younger, complications ensue too dense to explain here.
One thing is for sure, they all can soar through the air, tumble like acrobats, and manage swords like Olympians. The movie, solidly helmed by auteur Ang Lee, is about grace, both in combat and in love, so that the outcomes have a delicate honesty often lost in rude Western depictions.
To see warriors soar above giant bamboo forests and effortlessly glide on terra is part of the charm of this romantic story. Most of all, though, is its reverence for tradition and the modern at the same time. It’s been 23 years since the charming Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came on the scene—what took it so long!
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Director: Ang Lee (Life of Pi)
Screenplay: Hui-Ling Wang, James Schamus, Kuo Jung Tsai, from Du Lu Wang book
Cast: Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at once)
Run Time: 2h
Rating: PG 13
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and hosts Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take out of WCBE 90.5 FM. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com
