Apr 5, 2006 Posted by Herko on Apr 5, 2006 in Personal notes | 0 comments

Bring on tha Kung Fu, baby!

The movies I am going to review are: Crouch­ing Tiger, Hid­den Dragon Wo hu cang long by Ang Lee (2000), Hero Ying xiong by Yimou Zhang (2002), Shaolin Soc­cer Siu lam juk kau by Stephen Chow (2001), Kung Fu Hus­tle also by Stephen Chow (2004), House of the Fly­ing Dag­gers by Yimou Zhang (2004), Fear­less Hou Yuan Jia by Ronny Yu (2006), Ong-Bak by Prachya Pinkaew (2003), Zato­ichi by Takeshi Kitano (2003), Shi­nobi by Shi­moyama Ten (2005) and Seven Swords Chat gim by Hark Tsui (2005).

First up: Crouch­ing Tinger, Hid­den Dragon (2000)

Acclaimed direc­tor Ang Lee made a movie called ‘Sense and sen­si­bil­ity’ in 1995, based on the famous book by the Bronte sis­ters. My wife loves that movie. There’s noth­ing spe­cial about that fact, except that this pure Elis­a­bethian eng­lish movie about hon­our and gen­tle­man­ship spawns from the same source as the epic mar­tial arts flic Crouch­ing Tiger, Hid­den Dragon (Wo hu cang long). You might be think­ing ‘Ang Lee…. I know I’ve heard that name not too long ago!‘. You’re right. After tra­di­tional Eng­land and thrilling China, mr. Lee brings us gay cow­boys in the United States of Amer­ica. Yes, Broke­back Moun­tain is his lat­est award win­ning movie.

Crouch­ing Tiger, Hid­den Dragon, or Wo hu cang long as it’s offi­cially called, is an epic tale about kung fu mas­ters chas­ing their dreams. The calm and con­fi­dent swords­mas­ter Li Mu Bai is played by Yun-Fat Chow, who you may know from the movie Anna and the King, star­ring along­side Jodie Fos­ter. Mar­tial arts spe­cial­ist Jet Li refused the role as he promsed his wife he’d skip work while she was preg­nant. Yun-Fat Chow isn’t well known for his kung-fu skills, but he com­pen­sated that enough with his charis­matic por­trail of the Wudan swords­mas­ter struggeling with his life’s goals and ambi­tions. Sup­ported by Michelle Yeoh as Yu Shu Lien, also a wushu mas­ter of the Wudan school and silently his lover. Michelle Yeoh only spoke can­tonese, and had to learn her lines in man­darin chi­nese. Third lead char­ac­ter is Yen Yu, a rich man’s daugh­ter with er own ambi­tions, played by Ziyi Zhang. Zhang, orig­i­nally a dancer, brings grace and pas­sion to movie. And sex-appeal. Lots of sex-appeal. Buck­ets of them.
The story is about these three peo­ple fight­ing what they think is expected of them and their own desires. Each comes from a dif­fer­ent back­ground, and deals with this strug­gle in his or her own way. Thrilling action sequences and beau­ti­full scenery and stages makes this movie a must see for mar­tial arts fans.
The movie uses a wide range of spe­cial effects to tell the story of kung-fu mas­ters bat­tel­ing eachother. Fly­ing, huge jumps, spins and awe inspir­ing fight­ing scenes make this movie a big hit (4 oscars won). This makes this movie one of my favorites.
How­ever, for a Chi­nese epic drama, this movie is told in true hol­ly­wood fash­ion. Plot lines are com­pre­hen­si­ble, it has almost all of the clas­sic clichés of a true love that is hard to get, pas­sion between two youths, choices that need to be made, a final con­fronta­tion and all that. The story may be Chi­nese, but it’s been trans­lated for the big (read: west­ern) audi­ences. Some may feel this is a shame, but I’d rather take this movie at face value, and rate it as an enter­tain­ing and not too dif­fi­cult to under­stand movie. Its huge suc­cess paved the way for many asian movies that have a higher bud­get and thus great casts, effects and cin­e­matic artistry.

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