Rating: 
Summary: wow
Review: wow....wow wow wow. I am typically not a "omg omg that movie was soooo great!"kind of person. But this movie was amazing. i have friends who have never seena jackie chan movie in thier entire lives and they loved this movie. This movie is good for all agfes and any likes. The charachters are so peaceful and calm, but at the same time dramatic and intense. The fighting scenes are amazing and the photography was beautiful. It was just and amazing movie. Go See it!
Rating:
Summary: The brightest star ...
Review: Some reviewers are calling for Zhang Ziyi to be nominated for the 2001 Oscar for best supporting actress. Are they crazy? If she should be nominated at all, it should be for best actress! Jen was the central character around which the other characters and the story revolve.Could anyone else have expressed it better: the sweet curious innocence of an aristocrat's daughter, the tearful defiance under the strain of force from her pursuers, or the feeble challenge of submission under her drug-induced stupor? I especially love that scene of her eyes welling in tears as Chow was on the verge of unveiling her... I could see this film over and over again - once to soak in the drama, action and atmosphere, once to just wallow in the haunting score, once to savour the almost poetic dialogue (such as: Jen, "And this little boy who fails to find his star turns to stealing my comb." Lo, "I'm a man now, and I have found myself the brightest star."), and once to focus on Zhang Ziyi alone. No, the Oscar will not stand up to your talent, Ziyi, and this is only your second film! And alas, your star is shining so brightly now that big production monies will come a-knocking and you will be soon lost to some low Jackie Chan or Hollywood action flicks, or else, some directors more obsessed with your charm than making a good film. Sigh.
Rating: 
Summary: Gnashing at the bit.
Review: 'Crouching Tiger' would be worthy of every superlative thrown at it except that the word 'superlative' is not in Ang Lee's vocabulary. Everything about the film - the suppressed love story, the awesomely intricate fight scenes, the rites-of-passage of its spiky heroine, the authentic recreations of costumes and use of locations, the acting, the score - all speak of quality restraint. This is fine as far it goes, but doesn't anyone wish Lee would let go just a little, would burst the shackles of taste? I like my martial arts movies to be either unpredictable and mind-blowing, or exhiliratingly silly. 'Crouching Tiger', so considered and discreet, so obviously an Oscar-winner, is neither.
Rating:
Summary: u have to see this movie!!
Review: i was looking for a movie to see with my buds and i read somewhere that crouching tiger hidden dragon was out. at first, i thought this is just going to be like any other chinese action movie. but when we went to see it, i was fully blown away! i'm so not kidding. i really liked their fight scenes! it's so real. it's about this guy, li mu bai, he's fully fed up with being a warrior, so he decided to give up his sword and go have a peaceful life. ha, not a chance. he gives his sword to his friend, but then it gets stolen real quick. so now he's all caught up in trying to find the sword. his friend, yu shu lien, she a girl by the way, helps him try to find the sword. it turns out that the governer's daughter took it. she didn't really mean any harm, she's trying to escape this marriage.
Rating:
Summary: Year of the "Dragon"
Review: In Joseph Campbell's classic study "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," the author argues that the need for myths lies deeply imbedded in all cultures, and that these myths are, at their core, the same story told over and over again. (Hence their universal appeal.) This argument proves smashingly persuasive in light of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," which is not only the best movie of the year, but a film that taps into classic myths and legends so beautifully and powerfully that it's easy to see why so many viewers are falling in love with it. Much has already been written about the film's links to the Chinese "wuxia" tradition, by people who know much more about it than I do, so I have nothing to add there. I would only say that Arthurian legends, Arabian Nights, witches, Kurosawa and Sergio Leone pictures, and American Westerns also echo throughout this film. Those who claim that "Crouching Tiger" is based on "Star Wars" or "The Matrix" are missing the point. All three films derive from the same tradition, and tell, with variations, essentially the same story. Ang Lee has called his film "a dream of China." He has made a dream of a movie.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone must see this film
Review: A Chinese martial arts film with subtitles? Please, please, please don't let that put you off going to see this film. I can't put into words how good this movie is. To start with the locations are magnificent, & it is beautifully filmed. The acting is excellent, the martial arts at times so fast you cannot keep up with them, but then again at times are like ballet. The film works on so many different levels, is it a mystical tale, a love story, or a martial arts film....it is all! I was totally immersed in the story, and the 2 hours flew by. If this doesn't win awards there is no justice!
Rating:
Summary: Simply a Masterpiece
Review: Director Ang Lee (Sense & Sensibility) has created an epic tale of love, honor, devotion, and intrigue set against a backdrop of 19th century China. When Li Mu Bai (Chow Yung Fat) decides to give the infamous "Green Destiny" sword to his good friend it sets in motion a story of breathtaking passion whether it's a sword fight in a courtyard or a gentle touching of the hands at a table. The acting is superb especially Ziyi Zhang with her porcelein doll looks but lightining quick moves manifesting itself throughout the film especially in the restuarant scene. Chow Yung Fat (Li Mu Bai) and Michelle Yeoh (Yu Shu Lien) play their roles to perfection on two levels, they are great warriors but understate their strengths due to their teachings from the Masters...and the relationship between them is on the surface benign but we know they are madly in love with one another. Then we have Chen Chang (Lo) who sweeps Jen Yu off her feet like Michael Douglas did to Kathleen Turner in "Romancing The Stone". Pei Pei Cheng plays "Jade Fox" nicely as the betrayer but deep down inside someone you can feel sorry for. The action sequences were masterfully choreograghed by Yuen Wo-Ping (The Matrix) as he was able to blend the movements like a Kirov Ballet. Add to this the thunder and fury of the music of Tan Dun for the fighting/action scenes and the beautiful and melodic cello work of Yo-Yo-Ma to bring out the love and passion of the central characters you soon realize your senses are experiencing something special. Only a few films have done that to me in the past...it would be an understatement to simply say i think this is the best film of 2000-2001 since that would be accepting it on just a physical sense but when it touches your mind and soul in ways words can't describe it goes way beyond that.
Rating:
Summary: Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves!
Review: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is, for lack of a better word, astonishing. It's easily the best film I've seen this year (a title previously held by Almost Famous). Directed by Ang Lee, this is a movie that had me slack-jawed with wonder for most of its playing time. The story is a retelling of an ancient Chinese folk tale: warrior Li Mu Bai (a commanding Chow Yun-Fat), heartsick at killing, has decided to take the path of peace. He asks his longtime friend Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh, in perhaps her finest performance) to give his 400-year-old sword, the Green Destiny, to Sir Te in Beijing. Shortly after the sword has been given to Sir Te, it vanishes, coinciding with the arrival of Governor Yu for his daughter Yu Jen's (Zhang Ziyi) arranged wedding. What follows is an engrossing detective story involving plots and counterplots: Lin Mu Bai suspects that it has been stolen by Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei), who may be posing as someone in Governor Yu's household. And Jade Fox may have an accomplice. Tied into this plot are several subplots: the unspoken yearning between Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien; Yu Jen's desire for a life other than that as the wife of a bureaucrat; and her secret love for thief Lo (Chang Chen), a nomadic desert chieftain. The scenes between Chow and Yeoh are especially touching; Yeoh is particularly subtle and nuanced in her acting. As touching as the romantic scenes are, the fight scenes are explosive and unbelievably fluid. People walk on water, they run up walls and leap from rooftop to rooftop as if gravity were just a nuisance, an idea to be ignored. I was particularly struck by how carefully the scenes were choreographed: Chow Yun-Fat's spare, economical style, befitting a master warrior; Yeoh's beautiful, natural style; and especially Zhang, who seems like a cross between Warner Brothers' Tasmanian Devil and a whirling Dervish, all angles and nuclear-powered fury. But the best thing is, the fight scenes don't feel tacked-on; they are led to naturally from all that came before. I have a couple of quibbles with this movie all the same: parts of it felt like they dragged or were longer than they needed to be, and the desert scenes between Chang and Zhang could easily have been put at the start of the movie. But that's minor compared to the sheer artistry on display here. Much has been written on the strong feminist streak running through this movie. Women are the focus here, and with no apologies. But it doesn't feel like an anti-male rant; it is, instead, a touching and affecting movie about men and women. The diversity of the audience at the screening I attended certainly surprised me: couples of all ages, a small army of teenaged Asian girls, the requisite wuxia fanboys. At the end of the movie, the audience erupted in spontaneous applause and cheers. And so, to sum up this too-long review: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of those rare movies that satisfies your heart and your head. Go see it. Go see it RIGHT NOW. My grade: A. -terry-
Rating:
Summary: A long time comming
Review: I've been waiting for a film that truly shows the beauty of Asian action movies for a long time. It has finally arrived. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shows all the beauty and poetry that you'll find in Japanese animation or Hong Kong action films with out all the flaws (bad acing, story holes, poor effects). I'm sill stunned that by it. It's simply the best martial arts movie ever made.
Rating:
Summary: I hate to jump on the bandwagon, but...
Review: There's a telling moment near the beginning of Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." In closeup, we see the rough-hewn, heavy wooden wheels of a peasant cart. They nestle in deep ruts worn into the stone paving blocks of a roadway entering a gated city. The cart rumbles on, its wheels fitting perfectly into the grooves worn by unspoken centuries of just such passing wagons...in one image we see how tradition creates its own paths, how contemporary reality is fabricated to fit such traditions... The camera rises, we see an almost impossible panorama of Peking, the Forbidden City spreading out before us like an Oz extending to the horizon. What a film this is. While it may not be the most wondrous thing ever...it is a superb action adventure romance with terrific acting and a much-welcome heart at the core of all that technical superiority. The action sequences are the kind that take the breath away and inspire a sense of awe, rather than the sort that leave you white-knuckled and sweaty. "Crouching Tiger...", I am told, is representative of a specific literary/cinematic genre in China: Wu Xia...the wizard/warrior piece...magic and martial arts blended. I'm not familiar with the form, but the world portrayed here is a breathtakingly fantastical one. The story is putatively set in 19th century China, but it could be anywhere, anywhen. It is a place of high honor and deep feelings, a place where people are bound by traditions and held captive by their forms. It is also a place of wild and mythic landscapes...from stark desert (thought nowhere do we get that featureless, wide-screen linear horizon seen in David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia!") to magic misty green mountains with deep dark lakes and steeply cascading streams that come braiding, tumbling down the rockslide heights. High, reedy bamboo forests wave, wondrous, in sighing winds. In this world people may do amazing things. The flying in this movie -- properly called "wire work" in film terms -- is fantastic. This technique, of course, was not invented by the Wachowski's, but the choreographer of "Crouching Tiger...", Woo-ping Yuen, also staged the wire-fights of "Matrix." Here, the ability of our warrior heros and villains to climb walls, to leap to the rooftops and soar from building to building -- not to mention engaging each other in aerial combat that soars from the peak of a mountain top to the rocks of a mountain stream in a single take -- or to duel on the very tips of dipping, waving bamboo trees -- looks almost plausible, just over the border of the possible, at least. The whole packed-in audience at the big theater at the advanced screening at Pipers Alley in Chicago burst into spontaneous applause several times throughout... At other moments, I found myself in weepy transport. As I think of the fight in the treetops, right now, I become drippy -- tingly of eye and sinus. Apart from all else, this is grand storytelling! It has passion, love, revenge...it expresses deep need and longing. Pant, pant, pant... And, yes, the woman are the action hearts of the film! Michelle Yeoh is wonderful...but I've been in love with her for years. Here, she is more mature, quieter, wiser than in any role I've seen her in. Her performance is strong and moving, her face registering, magically, a range of conflicting emotions, hidden secrets, crouching angers, all at once. In acting training we were always told you can't do that. She does it. Chow Yun Fat, too...I've been a fan of his since I first discovered John Woo's Hong Kong crime thrillers...is the best I've ever seen, as well...magnificent in his silences. Strength without cruelty. The center of the film...remarkably...is a girl who looks to be about 15! Ziyi Zhang whose date of birth is given as 1979. Zhang is from Beijing, China, and has only one other film credit. I say that she is remarkable because her story is the binding element of the film. And she holds the film together! Holding her own with Yeoh and Chow in both the dramatic material and in the balletic martial pas de deus (okay...did I spell that right?) that frame the conflicts between them. She is the "Luke Skywalker" of the piece, if you will...though "Crouching Tiger..." has everything the "Star Wars" saga had: excitement, thrills and magic, but here, it is wrapped in those things Lukasfilm wanted to give, but succeeded in delivering in only the most self-conscious way: heart and deep-placed spirit. By the way: this is an action film, almost uniquely without violence...or, rather, the violence is so stylized, so removed into some mystical realm, that it almost disappears into dance. There is, I believe, only one small splash of blood onscreen. Typically, I don't like that -- figuring that if you're going to do a film where violence is part of it all, where action advances plot, let's have it full-bore, the "Full Peckinpaw," if you will. Here, however, this stylization works beautifully! While there are those who might grumble that Jackie Chan (another favorite of mine) does it all for real, without wires and trick photography...okay...true enough... But here that exuberance of motion is put in service of a grand story and strong characters who carry worthwhile burdens of emotions! So there. Enough? Just go see it. I can't wait for the DVD! I'll probably see it again, maybe see it twice again, before it hits the home-market.
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