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 Director
:Ang Lee
Starring
: Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Chang, Sihung
Lung, Pei-pei Cheng, Fazeng Li and Li Li.
Picture
2.35:1 Anamorphic, DTS and DD 5.1 Mandarin, DD 5.1 English-Dubbed,
Dual-Layer, Keep Case
Running
Time : 119 mins
The
story:
Hide
your strength from others.
Two
master warriors (Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh) are faced
with their greatest challenge when the treasured Green Destiny
sword is stolen by a young aristocrat named Jen (Zhang Ziyi).
Jen should be preparing for an arranged marriage, but the
like of a warrior seems more appealing as she reveals her
superior fighting talents with the aid of the sword. As
each warrior battles for justice, they come face to face
with their worst enemy - and the inescapable, enduring power
of love.
The
summary:
I'm pretty sure that most of you are aware of "Crouching
Tiger", winner of two Golden Globes, four BAFTAs and
four Academy Awards. If you're not, let me enlighten you.
Crouching Tiger is the martial-arts English subtitled, Mandarin-language
film that took the world by storm a couple of years back,
mainly due to the involvement of action choreographer Woo-ping
Yuen (who was also responsible for the fighting sequences
in "The Matrix"). Although I don't have a problem
with subtitled films, I was pleased to find the inclusion
of an English-dubbed soundtrack, something that is lacking
from the region one release.
So
as you may have gathered by now, as with "The Matrix"
special effects and stunts are the order of the day. Woo-ping
Yuen takes the fight sequences in Crouching Tiger to another
level, by giving the warriors the power to defy gravity
and battle it out with swords whilst skipping across roofs
and trees. Whilst visually, this may look amazing, it does
make the film a little too "fantastical" for my
liking. It may be a landmark in choreographed fight-sequences,
but don't let this gloss over some major flaws with the
film. For starters it's just not realistic. Even though
the warriors can kind of fly, they don't "fly"
in a realistic manner, rather in jumping around attached
to wire kind of way. The scenes where they're standing perched
on those trees is probably the best example of this but
on many of the scenes it's just looks a bit daft. The real
problem though is the lack of depth to the main characters.
We don't really get to find out much about them, nor do
they seem to interact properly with each other. There's
no chemistry between Master Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien (Yun-Fat
and Yeoh) which makes you wonder why the Yoda-like Li Mu
Bia would bother persistently trying to take her under his
wing when she clearly doesn't want his help. The same can
be said of the rather shallow "romance" thread
in which we see little love between them.
On
the plus side, as I mentioned before it really is stunning
to watch. Some of the effects and choreography (all of which
are fight sequences) will really blow you away. The speed
of the swordfights are amazing and are presented as almost
ballet-like dance sequences. Much to my surprise, I also
found it quite funny at times. The best example of the humour
is the fight scene in the restaurant where Yu Shu Lien takes
on everybody in the house! The story beautifully unravels
and as you'd expect from a Chinese film, it has a moral
to be learned from it. It's no surprise that Crouching Tiger
managed to break through to the mainstream Western market,
so sit back, enjoy some culture and forgive it's misgivings
and you'll be in for a treat.
The
standard version of Crouching Tiger has been available for
some time, so is there really any reason to buy this more
expensive Superbit release? Well that depends what you're
looking for in a DVD. If you love all the bonus material
and extras that go with the package then you'll be disappointed
to find there's no extras whatsoever on this disc. But for
pure film-lovers who just want the best possible version
of the film, then the high definition Superbit transfer
(which uses a high bit rate digital transfer process, hence
the lack of space for extras) is the one to go for. It looks
fantastic and we really cant find fault with the picture.
There's also a DTS 5.1 soundtrack, although it's Mandarin
only so you'll have to make do with DD 5.1 if you want to
listen in English.
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