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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny

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Review and Cinetv contest - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon@bipolar95473d

I can't remember the last time I watched a fighting movie, maybe because I'm not a fan, but for this prompt, I wanted to relive my childhood. You see, when I was a child, my siblings and I, along with my brother's friends, were great fans of fighting movies, especially martial arts. We would watch them and then start replicating the moves afterwards. It was such a fun time. Our favorites back then were, "Shaolin Soccer" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." Those were really good times, and when I saw this prompt, I thought, "Why not take a trip down memory lane and relive my childhood?"

THE MOVIE

This is a Chinese film that revolves around martial art and spiritual enlightenment. We could see that each fighting technique was influenced by the mind, as there seemed to be no much force asserted during combat. It was all about identifying the opponent's weaknesses and using them against them. This is the part that I love the most about martial arts. I am a huge fan, and it doesn't count as fighting for me unless a fist is involved.

There were five main characters in the movie: Li Mu Bai, Shu Lien, Jen Yu, Lo 'Dark Cloud, and Jade Fox. From the movie, the message I got was discipline, intentions, and not gender equity. The movie showed that the heart should remain pure, and the mind shouldn't be contaminated by selfish desires of revenge. From the movie, I also got that unless its self defence, one should not cause harm to another.

Plot and opinions

This movie took us to China, during the Qing dynasty, where Li Mu Bai is a renowned Wudang swordsman. He has a friend and trusted companion, Yu Shu Lien, who happens to be a warrior and heads a private security company. In the first scene, we see some sort of love tension between Shu Lien and Mu Bai. Unfortunately, they can't act on it because Shu Lien was once betrothed to Mu Bai's close friend, Meng Sizhao, before his demise.

Despite what Shu Lien and Mu Bai feel for each other, they remain loyal to Meng Sizhao, even in death, prompting them to suppress their feelings for each other.

Then there is the Jen Yu character, the daughter of a governor who wants to be free and live life on her own accord. From childhood, she became a disciple to Jade Fox, who taught her martial arts by guiding her and giving her the secret scrolls of Wudang.

Being literate, she soon read and mastered the scrolls, thereby surpassing Jade Fox, her master, who was limited to just studying the diagrams because she was an illiterate. As the movie progresses, we soon see Jen Yu harboring some of Jade's grievances, which made her unfit to be a "swordswoman." Again, having seen her fight, Mu Bai was pushed to teach her everything there is to know about martial arts. While Jen mastered the skills, she lacked the discipline, which made her short of achieving spiritual enlightenment.

Going further into the movie, it was Mu Bai informing Shu Lien of his intentions to take Jen Yu in as a disciple. But, Shu Lien, soon reminded him of the rules, which state that the teachings of Wudang is strictly for men. Mu Bai however didn't care about gender; he saw a skillful young woman who he felt could carry on the teachings and be better if properly guided. Well, unfortunately for Jen Yu, she had Jade Fox in her head right from childhood, brainwashing her to hate Wudang and never have anything to do with people affiliated with it.

Watching through the movie, I soon realized that Jade's grievances with Wutang, came from a place of hurt and betrayal.

In Jade's early years, it so happened that she had registered at Wudang to become a skilled swordswoman. Not knowing about the gender rules, she was caught in an affair with the Wudang Master. It was during the affair with the master that she realized he had no intentions of teaching her, and upon confrontation, he hinted that she wasn't worthy to wield the sword. It was in that rage that Jade poisoned him because she wanted to have the satisfaction of knowing that in all his glory, he died at her hands.

From this part of the movie, I reaffirmed one of my life's lessons: never to underestimate anyone, no matter how under they may seem, especially when they are someone we share a bond with. Seeing Jade pass on her hate for Wutang to Jen, further exposed me to how contaminated anger can become and the dangers of being guided by someone who is mentally and emotionally bruised.

Jen's fighting skills were limited by Jade's anger and hate for Wutang that she bore in her heart. Mu Bai saw that and he wanted to correct, but Jen rebuked him as the hate she had been fed was much stronger than her ambition to become skilled at what she loved best, wielding a sword.

You see, one thing that intrigues me most about martial arts is the perfect blend between mental and physical strength, which I saw played out in the movie. I happen to be a staunch believer of the mind being key to unlocking several impossibilities in the human state. In this movie, there were characters levitating, and then we saw Mu Bai talk about attaining spiritual enlightenment, but he didn't want to remain in it because his heart wasn't ready to let go of the love he has for his Shu Lien.

From that scene, I saw attachment play out; I saw it as the stumbling block that it is, and how it can hinder one from growth. Another of my life's lesson that this reaffirmed is the dangers of anger. Basically, it's all about fighting for a purpose, with pure intentions and self-defense. I have always believed that mastering martial arts can make one almost invincible, such that in any given situation, one can defend themselves and also escape danger for safety.

I also believe that one who is skilled mentally and physically can disarm any weapon. We saw this in the battle between Shu Lien and Jen, where Jen wielded the most powerful weapon in the movie (the green sword) but was still unable to defeat Shu Lien because she was more skilled, experienced, and a master of her art.

I am not much of a fighter as I have always preferred the diplomatic approach but when it comes to confrontations, I never back down. Even though I have no training in martial arts, I dabble in some of it's teachings thanks to my mysticism root.

As much I love this movie I didn't like how the ending played out with the last fighting scene. It was a tragic end arousing emotions and almost bringing tears to my eyes. Regardless, I am quickly reminded that life is not a bed of roses and it can't always be sunshine plus happy endings.

This was a nostalgic watch and I'd rate it 10/10 🙂

All images were gotten from screenshots from the movie

Above is my response to the Cinetv contest, you can check it out HERE

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2 more reviews

›So I Watched Something - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon@crimsoncrown1670d

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Kino is an interesting terminology, sometimes you use it on the wrong movie like a proverbial Oscar-bait film, it can leave a bad taste. But, even for a film that fits the Oscar-winning category, it has earn its spot as one of the most revered films out there. This film is in fact what I would call a really good Chinese blockbuster film for the western markets.

Hate to leave the salt here, but I do not like current Chinese films. They lack completely of the pessimism and need to question ways of life that earlier films in the 20th century have. You can find all sorts of Criterion movies from China and Hong Kong that has defined cinema for years to come.

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This film didn't redefined a lot of Chinese films for the western market, because there were plenty that were out like Once Upon A Time In China. But none had a story that kept you glued to the screen and crazy martial arts choreography leaving you awestruck throughout the entire runtime.

For me, this piece of cinema probably had changed the standards for martial arts film with such an amazing story, acting performances, and visual galore. It has a lot to do with Ang Lee being the director, thanks to his years being spent studying filmmaking in the US. (Also, ironic considering he's Taiwanese).

The film is based on a book by Wang Dulu, which happened to be the 4th book of his Crane Iron pentalogy. There were several adaptations for the book from a movie in the 60s before the film, to a TV series in 2001 and a comic book adaptation post-film release.

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The story is a bit simple, yet has a lot of emotional complexities around it because of how different each of the characters is. Out of the 3 leads, two people want to move on from their oaths, so that they may pursue their love for each other. One of them has hidden talents to use the most powerful martial arts and yet is held back because of her family, nobility, and because of her role as a woman. So she rebels and follows a tutorship of an assassin in disguise within her family. And there's so much more going on, each of these characters' faith are intertwined with each other. But most of the story is wrapped around these 3 central characters.

It's a riveting tale about finding the power and means to have control in your life but also coming at big costs and unforeseeable consequences. It's a Chinese drama that doesn't have a happy ending and compels its viewers to empathize with its character so that they can envelop the depth of the emotions felt in the story.

Production for the film was based on the condensed version of the novel which was split into five parts. With a screenplay written by 3 people, one of them being American. With a budget of 18 million dollars, most of the shooting was done within Xinjiang provinces while the rest of the movie was filming was done in Beijing.

Stunt works were mostly done by actors, with stunt coordinator Yuen Woo-ping of Hong Kong in charge, and that the CGI was used to hide the cables holding the characters mid-air. Ang Lee had an exhaustive 8 months working on the film, citing it as his most time-consuming job ever.

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The end result is a film that blossoms with brilliant stunt choreography and mesmerizing set pieces, so much of that fills up about 1/4 of the film. Basically, like the movie consists of an abundance of narrative story points and fight scenes, both with melee weapons and close quarters. This film earned over 200 million in the box office and people in the filming community still to this day, kind of won't shut up about it.

The casts included are Chow-Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, and Zhang Ziyi. All 3 leads give the performance of their lives, even if they're speaking in Chinese, and I mean in Cantonese, not Mandarin. Both Yeoh and Ziyi broke out their breakout performance that have established them as staples of the acting industry. Chow-Yun was already a big household name in the Hong Kong film industry, notably for his Gun-Fu films from John Woo.

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The novel itself had already an incredible tale to give, with Ang Lee's narrative direction and Hollywood's most well-known production companies from Columbia Pictures. Along with several studios from Hong Kong becoming a part of the project. It wasn't highly funded, but a lot of people with a lot of passion went into the making of this incredible film, under the guise of the Taiwanese director himself.

Back in the late 90s, 18 million was a lot when they weren't being invested on big sets or large-scale CGI creation. So they used whatever they had to allocate towards all the production costs till the end.

Ang Lee is a filmmaker who usually makes highly conceptual films. Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi are his recent good examples of brilliant films that are thick with atmosphere, come with rich storytelling, and evoke a sense of presence. Yet, none of those films comes with the mature nature of the storytelling that this one does.

I wish you could check this out, if you're not convinced, just go watch the trailers and get a good idea of how bedazzling this sad, somber tale of romance is. You won't find another like this post-market-bubble China, because since then, China has done nothing but shut off any auteurs from pursuing to make films that challenge the industry as a whole.

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›Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon@jeff0012875d
More than just an Asian Fight movie.
A lot of Asian movies involving martial arts fall into the trap of relying far too heavily on the fight scenes and loose focus on other aspects, such as plot, and backdrops. This movie blends all the elements of a good movie including the fight scenes but doesn't rely on them.
Here we have two stars of the Asian movie scene, Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeo, plus a relatively newcomer of Zhang Ziyi. All three had major parts in the movie, it could be argued however that Zhang had the more complex character.
She had to combine the nobility of a princess, the inexperience of youth, and role of a fighter. As she plays a princess, she is expected to marry a suitor that has been arranged for her.

As for the plot, we have a warrior (Chow Yun) who wishes to retire giving his sword the Green Destiny to an old friend (Michelle). It seems that the two of them have been more than friends in the past. The sword however is stolen, so now the investigation is on. This leads to the house of Yu where we meet Zhang, from this point the movie adds another element over the "traditional" Asian martial arts movie.

There is a reason it was nominated for so many awards, it is an excellent movie. If you like Asian/martial arts movies, you should watch this one.

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THE MOVIE

Plot and opinions

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2 more reviews

More than just an Asian Fight movie.