CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*

Phenomenality first: there are assorted uncanny phenomena interspersed throughout this wuxia drama, not least a 400-year old blade rumored to have been forged under special circumstances and capable of cutting through most comparable weapons. But the film, taking place in or around the 19th century, verges into the world of the marvelous when it shows its characters leaping not just over ordinary walls, but as high as two-story buildings and scrambling up into the tops of mile-high trees for their sword-duels.

Unlike the majority of Hong Kong martial arts films, Ang Lee's CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON is not a wild adventure but a reasonably sober drama about missed opportunities and insoluble conflicts-- but with a lot of wild kung fu stunts. I'm sure I'll never read any of the 1940s Chinese novels on which TIGER was based, but I speculate that the modern screenwriters may have infused the material with contemporary sympathies. One of the most influential here is an implicitly feminist critique of traditional Chinese society, focusing on how even the upper classes of the day regarded their daughters as chattel, valuable for making advantageous marriages. Such is the plight of one of TIGER's three main characters, Jen (Zhang Ziyi), daughter of the Beijing governor.

The other two characters, kung-fu expert Li Mu Bai (Chow-Yun Fat) and his late friend's fiancee Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), do not know anything about Jen's plight when they meet again in Beijing, where Jen's political marriage will also take place. The two older heroes had in earlier years chosen to conceal their respective feelings for one another out of combination of loyalty and propriety, and so Li has been away for years, possibly using his skills to fight for justice. He tells Shu that he seeks to retire from the life of a swordsman, and to that end he entrusts his famed blade Green Destiny to a local dignitary. However, Li isn't sure he can give up the martial life until he finds a female practitioner named Jade Fox, who murdered Li's master, though she's been out of circulation for some fifteen years.

However, all those years ago Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei, famed for her early "diva" role in COME DRINK WITH ME) took refuge in the retinue of the governor, becoming the caretaker to Jen since she was eight years ago-- and in many respects, a substitute mother. During that time Fox trains Jen in the martial arts she stole from Li's master, though she does not entirely realize that Jen is so naturally talented that she far excelled Fox. The villainess learns of the disposition of Green Destiny and encourages the discontented young Jen to play thief and steal it. Li allies himself to roving policemen seeking Fox, and though this gives him a chance to cross blades with Fox, it also brings him into contact with the disguised Jen.

The moment Li encounters Jen, he recognizes her immense talent for the martial arts, and even while seeking to defeat her, he offers her the chance to train under him. Jen escapes without being identified, as does Fox, but Li has found a new purpose beyond vengeance. Li sincerely wants to cultivate the young woman's superior talent, quite as if she were the daughter he never had. Later in the film Shu will forge a quasi-paternal relationship with Jen, though this ends when Shu realizes how thoroughly Jen is in the thrall of Jade Fox. 

To further indicate Jen's compromise by extra-legal forces, a flashback also reveals that some time back she became the lover of a similarly youthful bandit leader named Lo. In current times Lo pressures Jen to desert her respectable life and join him in the wilderness. Jen doesn't quite do this but she does run from her arranged marriage and go undercover in male guise, though still possessing Green Destiny. The super-sword proves useful in one of the movie's standout set-pieces, in which Jen defeats a dozen kung-fu masters, simply because they piss her off.

Toward the end Jen is unable to make a definitive choice between the relatively good, represented by Li and Shu and the relatively bad, represented by Fox and Lo. Li does manage to take vengeance on Fox, but it costs his own life, and the movie's conclusion hinges on Jen's final decision.

This summation doesn't come close to capturing the immensely poetical imagery concocted by Ang Lee, the scripters, and both the FX and fight coordinators. For all three of the principals, the actors distinguish themselves with some of their career-defining performances, and many of the supporting players, such as Chang Chen and the aforementioned Pei Pei, contribute just as significantly. TIGER remains a high water-mark in the realm of the martial-arts film, not least for being widely accessible to a variety of cultures. The story also manages to champion the cause of feminism without necessarily advocating for the sort of ressentiment represented by the Jade Fox character.