Review of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) by Clem666 — 15 Nov 2020

The main force of this movie is the way it is filmed: landscapes, fights scenes, light and the differents shooting plans in the overall are amazing, colorful and impressive. Choregraphies are barely too unbelievable to be underlined. Choice of actors and their importance in the plot also are surprising. I was astonished by the place let to women in a 2000-movie taking place in the Medieval Asia. Hopefully these women are able to take the huge place they deserve in the story and complete it perfectly, making this a considerable piece in the feminist fight. Story by the way is crazy-original and totally goes out of the mainstream way of asian martial movies.

Unfortunately the movie is constructed in a way it makes difficult to easily and clearly understand where it wants us to go. Stories are developped in parallel with varying levels of detail. The bad point about choregraphies is to look in the scenes in which characters 'fly' and 'run' of roofs. In these parts of the movie special effects simply sucks. It then becomes really hard to keep focus despite what the movie is showing us. Laughter is not welcome during drama scenes. I read a lot of people's opinion saying the acting was cool. I do not agree since half of the characters (often the oldest) seems to play like they were impassible monks. Hopefully the end brings a bit of emotions to everyone in the cast. Speaking of the ending (no spoil I promise), I just didn't get it. The credits truly seem to be in the bad place. I can't help thinking that producers didn't know how to end all this.