Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo Hu Cang Long) (2000)

Runtime: 120 minutes

Directed by: Ang Lee

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen, Cheng Pei-Pei

From: Several companies from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and the USA

Recently, I purchased both a 4K TV and a 4K player; besides making me feel like I am properly in 2021, it allows me to check out top of the line streams from the likes of Amazon Prime. This was available in 4K for free-if you are a member of Prime-& I discovered how great the film looks in that format.

Presumably most are familiar with the basics, such as all the extensive wire-fu (a rare time where I actually enjoy seeing martial artists flying around as if they were superheroes), the leads and how the movie starts off as a tale over a sword being stolen-only for it to become a lot more complex-so I won't dwell too much on that. While it is not my favorite wuxia motion picture in terms of story or action or characters, it is still very good overall and having a great director helm it all was a huge asset.

With the big budget, it was a visual delight just from all the exotic locations they shot at... from lush woods to deserts with large dunes; it is divine in 4K and with HDR. And of course it's always nice seeing both Chow Yun-Fat & Michelle Yeoh. The action scenes-with or without the aerial moments-still impressed in 2021 between all the intricate movements, how fast they were, the camera movements/cuts & a component that can't be forgotten, the quality score... hearing those drums when business picked up was grand.

As there are interesting characters and situations-from the unrequited love between the lead pair to an older lady thief known as Jade Fox to young gal who is about to be married and wishes to be “an independent woman”... it's not a surprise in hindsight that this was a rare (at least for the time) non-English language picture that received many Academy Award nominations and winning for Best Foreign Film, Best Cinematography for Peter Pal and Best Score for Tan Dun. Thank heavens this has aged like fine wine in the past two decades.