Sunday, June 3, 2012

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Rating: 70%
Now here's a movie that I tried to fully see two times in my life but I kept getting interrupted my parents sending me to bed or needing to go to school/work (not sure which) and never get the chance again. But at long last I have finally seen the movie in full, and here's what I thought of it.

Plot: Li Mu Bai is a skilled Wudang swordsman whose master was murdered years ago by a woman named Jade Fox who sought the skills of Wudang. Now he requests that Yu Shu Lien, a female warrior whom Li Mu Bai shares feelings for but never admit it to each other,  to send his sword, The Green Destiny to a friend of theirs in the city of Peking as an intention of giving up his warrior life. But a masked thief steals the sword and if believe by a police inspector that the thief is in league with Jade Fox which leads everyone to attempt to catch her.

Now I admit to most of the reasons why people really like this film. I mean the action is well done, the effects are cool (I envy all the characters that can fly), and I enjoy the all around scenery and stuff with it being China and all. But I didn't entirely care for the characters or how the story carried on. Why is didn't care for the characters I'll say on my Actors/Characters section. But how the story ended...just wasn't as big and I hoped. *WARNING SPOILERS* I guess the thing is that I expected it to be a big climatic battle between good and evil and all that. How Jade Fox tried to end it once and for all does make sense with her being a bit of a coward and not exactly an expert in Wudang, but I do feel like it could've been so much bigger and longer than that with much, much more fighting. *END OF SPOILERS*

Actors/Characters:
Chow Yun-fat/Li Mu Bai: Now my issue with him as well as Yu Shu Lien is just the whole thing where they won't admit that they love each other. I think I just don't really like that kind of romantic story line where the whole time they won't admit some as simple and obvious as that...I blame Revenge of the Fallen for this. But even then, Li Mu Bai was a nice character in how he was this skilled, wise warrior who did try to help Jen with what she was going through.
Michelle Yeoh/Yu Shu Lien: Now romantic deal aside, she was a good character too with how she was also this skilled, wise warrior. Maybe not as wise as Li Mu Bai but still.
Zhang Ziyi/Jen Yu: Now when it comes to being smarter and much more skilled than Jade Fox, I really liked her. But the whole thing about her having a lot of potential and having a lot of good inside or whatever sounded too much like Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Maybe Jen is how they came up with that particular character or something, I don't know, but if it is, the sad thing is that for me Zuko came first and Jen came years afterwords.

Music: I did enjoy all the Chinese music that the film had to offer.

Editing: I thought the editing was very well done especially with the fighting scenes. Didn't find anything wrong with them.

And that's my review for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I liked it for its effects, action and the setting, but the characters and how it ended just didn't really work for me.

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