Review of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) by Asif K — 23 May 2011

Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee took a break from making Western period dramas to fashion this wild and woolly martial arts spectacular featuring special effects and action sequences courtesy of the choreographer of The Matrix (1999), Yuen Woo Ping. In the early 19th century, martial arts master Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) is about to retire and enter a life of meditation, though he quietly longs to avenge the death of his master, who was killed by Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei). He gives his sword, a fabled 400-year-old weapon known as Green Destiny, to his friend, fellow martial arts wizard and secret love Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), so that she may deliver it to Sir Te (Sihung Lung). Upon arrival in Peking, Yu happens upon Jen (Zhang Ziyi), a vivacious, willful politician's daughter. That night, a mysterious masked thief swipes Green Destiny, with Yu in hot pursuit -- resulting in the first of several martial arts action set pieces during the film. Li arrives in Beijing and eventually discovers that Jen is not only the masked thief but is also in cahoots with the evil Jade. In spite of this, Li sees great talent in Jen as a fighter and offers to school her in the finer points of martial arts and selflessness, an offer that Jen promptly rebukes. This film was first screened to much acclaim at the 2000 Cannes, Toronto, and New York film festivals and became a favorite when Academy Awards nominations were announced in 2001: Tiger snagged ten nods and later secured four wins for Best Cinematography, Score, Art Direction, and Foreign Language Film.

O boy, I remember watching this movie so many times since its released, recently it was on Tv so I thought i'll watch it again, this was I don't know my 6th or 7th time and I still loved it. this movie is an epic movie in every aspect every proportion. one of my all time favorite movies and one of the best movies ever. it is by far as far as I remember or have seen THE BEST Kung-Fu based movie. movie is breathtaking and full of adventure. you will enjoy this movie right from start to the very end.

This movie got so many Oscar nominations, about 10 I think and won 4 including Best Foreign language movie. one of the highest nominated Foreign movie nominated in every big category which explains how good this movie is, it was really praised everywhere else too.

It is directed by Ang Lee who nominated one of my favorite movies like Sense and Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain. he is so good with every kind of genres, from Westerns to romantic dramas to period flicks to martial art he is just so good and talented hardworking director. this is a movie which could have been very hard to handle for a director and easily would have destroyed it but he didn't. excellent masterful direction. screenplay is superb and have no faults, written very good. story is epic and likeable interesting and different. you will be glued to the screen and will really like the story.

Cinematography is another strong and appreciable and noticeable thing, you will love the visuals of the movie being shot in magnificent locations just catches your eye, lovely scenery. art direction is awsome, costumes are good. technically superb. movie's sound is good too. background score is the best feature of it, its excellent and very accurate and lovable. film editing is good too. technically its excellent.

The fight scenes are good too, they have been Choreographed epically, one of the best choreographed fight scenes in the history it just stops your breath, epically done. I loved the actors they performed well, Yun-Fat Chow, Michelle Yeoh, Ziyi Zhang, Chen Chang etc. I loved it so much, a superb mindblowing movie. two thumbs up. a powerful touching movie. A MUST SEE.