The other major character, Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei), stands between the heroes and their dreams. That brings Yu Shu Lien into contact with the governor's sheltered daughter, Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi), who leads a rigidly proscribed life, although she has a secret I will leave you to discover. He has for many years been in love with Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), and she with him, but their personal feelings wait upon vengeance and upon their attempts to recapture Green Destiny, a sword that once belonged to Li Mu Bai's master and has recently been sold to the wealthy district governor. The story involves Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) as a warrior who has vowed to avenge the death of his master. Long rehearsal and training went into their scenes, but what's unusual about "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is the depth and poetry of the connecting story, which is not just a clothesline for action scenes, but has a moody, romantic and even spiritual nature. Two other key characters are played by Zhang Ziyi (as Jen Yu) and Cheng Pei Pei (as Jade Fox). The film stars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh, veteran martial arts stars who have extraordinary athletic abilities (as Jackie Chan and many of the other stars of the genre also do). That's really them in the trees." And on the rooftops, too, he told me. "Maybe a little stunt work, but most of the time you can see their faces. "So those were stunt people up there?" I asked, trying to hold onto some reserve of skepticism. Computers were used only to remove the safety wires that held the actors. I "knew" this because I "knew" the actors were not really 40 feet in the air holding onto those trees. Watching this scene, I assumed it was being done with some kind of computer trickery. In "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," Lee and Wo-Ping give us a scene of startling daring and beauty, when two protagonists cling to the tops of tall, swaying trees and swing back and forth during a sword fight. In "Legend of Drunken Master," the recently re-released Jackie Chan movie, a bed of glowing coals is suspended in the air next to an elevated factory railway. There's also a competition to find unlikely settings for martial arts scenes. It's not who wins that matters (except to the plot, of course) it's who looks most masterful. The choreography of the action scenes in "Crouching Tiger" was designed by Yuen Wo-Ping, whose credits include " The Matrix," and who understands that form is more important than function. It is done so lightly, quickly, easily.įight scenes in a martial arts movie are like song-and-dance numbers in a musical: After a certain amount of dialogue, you're ready for one. There is a sequence near the beginning of the film involving a chase over rooftops, and as the characters run up the sides of walls and leap impossibly from one house to another, the critics applauded, something they rarely do during a film, and I think they were relating to the sheer physical grace of the scene. It stirred even the hardened audience at the 8:30 a.m. Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is the most exhilarating martial arts movie I have seen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |