Never Seen It, #41 of 200: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

I'm watching 200 movies I've never seen before, all in alphabetical order. This is the next one.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

2000

Whenever I think about Dunkirk, the 2017 Oscar-nominated war film, I think about when I first saw it, in theaters, drunkenly, at a 10:30 PM showing. The details of that viewing would typically result in almost assured sleep for yours truly—better to be a sleepy drunk than a violent drunk or a lecherous drunk, I always tell Pam—but with Dunkirk, I was wide awake the whole time. To me, that spoke to the film's level of excitement—it was so exciting that it was impossible to fall asleep, no matter how many beers under my belt.

But the reverse is not necessarily true. Falling asleep during a movie is not necessarily an indication of the film's lack of worth, or lack or thrills, or whatever. Case in point: I think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a swell movie, and I unequivocally fell asleep right in the middle of it.

Who knows, if I didn't have to write about it, then I might've been tempted to just not finish it at all after I had fallen asleep. I'm thankful, however, that my hand was forced to start again. In fact, this time I started from the beginning and rewatched the first hour before finally remaining conscious for the second hour. This time it clicked. (Also glad I didn't listen to Pam, who didn't fall asleep but did find it quite boring, and declined to join me for the rewatch.)

The most interesting idea to consider, here in the aftermath of viewing this film, is the idea that this was a movie rooted in traditions of the East, but specifically tailored to a Western audience. Which is the reverse of how it usually goes, right? Or, at the very least, the pipeline usually doesn't exist at all. 

Specifically, Crouching Tiger is a wuxia film, which is a term meaning "martial heroes." Martial arts, in other words. You can tell that director Ang Lee (who did Brokeback too) is consciously crafting a love letter to old martial arts films he grew up watching, because the template is lovingly applied to this film. Most notably, there's the fact that the physics of gravity don't seem to apply to fighters. Chases over rooftops, poisonous needles caught with chopsticks, a sword fight famously sequenced atop tall bamboo forest.

I'm not afraid to say that this is all fairly ridiculous. I'd perhaps even call it "silly." I think there's a way to say that respectfully, right? Like, I'm not saying that martial arts movies are "stupid" or "bad" because of what they contain. Silly can be good sometimes. Silly can be great if it's done well. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it's fucking done well. The scene with Jen Yu beating up all the random dudes at the restaurant, I mean, there's no way you can call it anything but SILLY, and it was one of the best movie sequences I've seen this year.

This is just pure, giddy fun. And this isn't a new insight into Joe K***, the fact that something like this would appeal to me. Pam and I had a classic argument about Game of Thrones in this vein—my enjoyment of that prestige drama was always derived almost solely from the explosive action sequences. While there was nothing like Game of Thrones on TV in that regard, this also kind of what made Game of Thrones a subpar show in general—the moments in between firefights, the bickering and politicking, eventually lost their luster, and a show comprised of only battle sequences is barely a show at all.

Which begs the question: What's in between the (insane) fight sequences of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Well, there's a lot, and either some or most of it works, depending on how you're feeling today.

What absolutely works: the big focus on societal pressures to conform, and the characters' desires to buck those norms. Young fighter Jen Yu is being forced to marry but has decided instead to train in secret and become the ultimate fighting champion. More experienced Yu Shu Lien has experienced those same pressures herself, and has succumbed to them, and now finds conflict in Jen's belief that she can overcome them. Even the villain Jade Fox expresses frustration at society's expectations of her as a woman (although her reaction is insidious as opposed to noble or heroic). So most of what I'm talking about has to do with women specifically, and how they are pushing back against traditional norms throughout the film (kind of like The Color Purple in that way). Like, let's not forget that the best fight sequence, technically-speaking at least, is between the two main women characters. That's a big deal!

What didn't really work: any focus doled out to romantic endeavors. I was far less invested in the Yu/Li unfulfilled romance then the movie seemed to be. Like, it didn't bring anything new to the idea, either thematically or even cinematically. I suppose this is one of the plotlines that was focused on specifically for Western audiences. If that's true, then I find myself more comfortable in the Eastern-influenced swordplay than Western-influenced lovey-dovey shit. Same goes with the incredibly long flashback sequence with Jen and Dark Cloud in the desert. I guess it was fun at moments (fighting on horseback), but overall I question its necessity. (Plus, imagine my confusion when I woke up and saw Crouching Tiger had turned into a western.)

Those concerns aren't really important ones, though. So what if I wasn't all that invested in Yu's love life? I was sure as shit invested in her fight life, and was blown away at all the kicks and punches and machete chopping. Pam was right on the money when she told me that The Matrix was out around the same time. In fact, the same choreographer did both movies—the legendary Yuen Woo-ping. (He also did Kill Bill, which is incredibly not on my NSI list, huge oversight.) The fighting is barely even violent; it's more like a dance. Fast-paced, fluid, visually stunning. 

I mean, look, if Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a two-hour fight sequence, I would've watched the shit out of it. I probably wouldn't have fallen asleep the first time around. But I rallied, I rewatched, and I came to appreciate this film as a whole. Not everything worked, but everything that did work worked so well that I can't help but consider it one of the better films I've seen in this project. I should really just stop trying to watch movies after 8 PM.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: Dan in Real Life seems like a pretty bad movie, but all those AVClub bits about it back in the day were hilarious, so let's see where it falls.