fludd.org - Movie Review

It is so obvious that nobody would have expected that a martial arts movie will be nominated for 10 Academy Awards. Like many people, I was really surprised when the movie Gladiator won the Academy Award for Best Picture. After all, the movie won the Academy for Best Foreign Language Movie.

One wouldn't expect to see such depth in an martial movie. When I saw this movie, for me, it was like a dream coming true: I was watching a movie that merged psychological evolution and action. I also like the fact that Ang Lee decided to concentrate more on the storyline rather than the action scenes. As a matter of fact, the story is well built and the action scenes (there's not many fights) don't come at the bad moment. While I watched this movie, I have noticed that director Ang Lee has paid a careful attention to Chinese legends and metaphysical beliefs. He presents the martial arts sequences with a degree of reverence that does not come to the mind of the campiness that the average viewer might associate with the genre. Hopefully, this is not Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan; it's something entirely different and, without a doubt, more wonderful. The cinematography is so beautiful that it blew me away. In addition to that, the actors delivers an excellent performance that will amaze you.

Secondly, the screenplay by James Schamus is very well written. However, the only problem with the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the fact the script writers followed too much the creative convention of the martial arts film. Thus, this small problem just bring some clichés that give us a feeling of déjà vu: for example, how many times have you seen a martial arts expert who wants to avenge his master's death? However, unlike what I've previously seen, the script writers found a very brillant way to bring us into the main character's mind while he's willing to avenge his master's death and the story manages successfully to develop the love story (in this case it is between Li Mu-Bai and Shu-Lien) without creating any long periods. In addition to that, I personally think that the movie can also rely on the very solid mise-en-scène from director Ang Lee, who is always reminding viewers that everything shouldn't be taken too seriously. In short, I think that those elements make "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" not only a masterpiece, but also one of the greatest movie of all time supported with a very solid performance by the cast.

Finally, I should tell you that no matter what other people might tell you, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is trully a masterpiece, because it is one of the few martial arts films that focus on characters' development rather than action scenes. All that being said, this is really the most significant martial arts movie I have seen in my whole life.

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