WO HU CANG LONG (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000) *** Love and violence, and a great title. The incredibly fluid, poetic ballet-ridden fight scenes got most of the ink, but the simple love lines are also great. Exotic and spectacular locations, fearless guidance by Ang Lee (who doesn't flinch as he sways into a 30 minute flashback in the middle of the film), and the Chinese are forever put on the roll call of great cinematic romances by Chen Chang and Ziyi Zhang. Chang is an incredible mix of gentleness and suppressed violence as Dark Cloud, ruling the desert with Arabesque music and a youthful Zapatista beard and spirit. Michelle Yeoh is also incredibly soulful, the tragedienne for whom love only knocks but never enters, or is the problem that she always allows herself to become distracted on the way to answering the door? Full of pathos, kindness, and dormant violence near the surface in any case. It's rare enough to see anything new in film these days, and the sped-up, choreographed martial arts scenes must be seen to be explained, and to be seen is to be appreciated. The only place where the two strands of plot meet, the violent mating ritual between Chang and Zhang, is at once heart-warming, amusing, and impressive. China is the aesthetically hidden continent, and at this point we're willing to believe damn near anything.
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