Greek translation (12/24/00)
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. [Ang Lee, 2000.]
Legendary swordsman Chow Yun Fat, having resolved to hang it up, and, maybe, if he can overcome his native bashfulness, at long last pitch some woo to his longsuffering [but obviously adoring] sidekick martial-arts babe Michelle Yeoh, gets sidetracked by the discovery of the whereabouts of the evil Jade Fox [Cheng Pei Pei], the wicked witch who poisoned his master and against whom he has sworn vengeance. Said Fox, it appears, has been hiding out incognito as the governess of teenage kungfu whizkid Zhang Ziyi, teaching her [Senator Palpatine to her Darth Maul] the forbidden secrets of the Wudan masters, and poisoning her attitude; which may explain why Zhang steals Chow’s famous sword, the Green Destiny, skips out on the marriage her government-bureaucrat father has thoughtfully arranged for her, and sets off to seek the life of adventure she has read about in the dime novels of the Chinese Wild West.
Or it may not. In fact nothing seems to explain the behavior of the wonderfully contrary Zhang [the very antithesis of the mythical submissive Oriental woman]; who, it develops, has absorbed more of the Wudan chordcharts than her supposed mentor knows, and [in pointed contrast to her painfully repressed rolemodels] has run away from home before, to live in sin with a Byronically romantic brigand [Chang Chen] in the wilds of the western deserts; though not, of course, without first kicking his ass.
So perhaps it should be no surprise that she spurns the renewed overtures of her former lover, the friendship of Ms. Yeoh, and even Chow’s me-Yoda-you-Skywalker proposal to teach her the fine points of the wandering swordsman’s trade: sometimes, after all, a babe must walk alone.
And anyway there must be some dramatic conflict to excuse the fights: a series of duels which constitute an extraordinary aerial ballet in which the protagonists bound up and down the walls and fly over the rooftops of Beijing, dance among the treetops, and [literally] walk on water, waving their swords at one another and arguing like Scholastics; not to mention the memorable saloon brawl [yes, this is a sort of Chinese Western, complete with horseplay] in which Zhang [in character as the Invincible Sword Goddess] takes on every guy in the joint and knocks the walls down with their flying bodies.
So though in due course the witch gets in the penultimate word and Chow [once again] satisfies the requirements of Chinese romance by expiring nobly, the little girl, who shares with the phenomenal Ms. Yeoh a remarkable beauty, a preternatural quickness, and a grace beyond the reach of art, very nearly steals the show.
Obviously this doesn’t represent a radical departure from the genre standards. Maybe Tsui Hark could do better, if he had this kind of money. — On the other hand George Lucas has more money than the Treasury, and he hasn’t made anything this good since the Seventies.
Photographed by Peter Pau [who did
The Killer]; cello by Yo Yo Ma; choreography, again, by the remarkable Yuen Wo Ping. Nobody seems to be able to dream up an Academy Award for this guy; maybe it’s time to consider nominating him for the Nobel prize.
Terrific scenery; who would have guessed the Gobi looks like Utah?
The best movie of the year.
____________There she is (12/20/00)
