Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Not a Crouching Nor Hidden Masterpiece

Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a masterpiece showcasing subtle yet marked character development and stunning landscapes.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon begins with Li Mu Bai, a master swordsman, returning home. Upon meeting his longtime friend and fellow warrior woman Yu Shu Lien, Mu Bai explains that he has broken off his meditative study at Shudan -- his meditation cannot be complete without breaking all material attachment. He has decided to give up his prized Green Destiny Sword to Sir Te, a mutual benefactor of both his and Shu Lien's. To allow Mu Bai to visit his master's grave, Shu Lien agrees to carry the sword to Sir Te in advance of Mu Bai.

At Sir Te's house in Peking, Shu Lien chances upon Jen Yu, a nobleman's daughter arranged for marriage. Jen is evidently envious of Shu Lien's supposedly free warrior lifestyle.

The Green Destiny Sword is stolen that night, and Governor Yu's compound is immediately suspected. Following the lead of an undercover policeman and his daughter, Shu Lien and Mu Bai discover the presence of the Jade Fox -- and Jen as the Jade Fox's protege.

Soon thereafter, Jen begins her wedding. The wedding procession, however, is interrupted by Lo, a desert pirate with whom Jen had had an affair. Upon escaping from the wedding's guards, Lo is seized by Shu Lien and Mu Bai and sent to Wudan for protection.

Jen is furious upon hearing the news from Shu Lien, believing it a ploy to send her to Wudan as well. Jen is defeated by Shu Lien, but cuts her when Shu Lien lowers her guard. When Mu Bai confronts Jen, she flees to the surrounding bamboo forest, where she promises to be Mu Bai's disciple if he takes her sword in three moves. Taking the sword in one, Mu Bai throws the sword down a waterfall. To his surprise, Jen jumps after it but is saved by the Jade Fox.

Mu Bai finally finds Jen in a cave. Jen is drugged, and he begins healing her as Shu Lien and a palace guard arrive. The Jade Fox is also apparently in the cave! Ambushing the group, the Jade Fox is mortally wounded by Mu Bai but not before she successfully poisons him with a poisoned needle. Jen, knowing the recipe for an antidote, hurries off, leaving Shu Lien alone with Mu Bai. Before Jen's return, however, Mu Bai declares his love for Shu Lien with his dying breath.

Jen agrees to go to Shudan, where she spends a final night with Lo. After hearing his wish for them to both be back happily in the desert, she flings herself off into the clouds.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon follows a long tradition of wuxia. In wuxia, one or many heros, usually supreme martial artists or powerful mages face off against equally powerful, and often dangerously deceptive, villains. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the clear heroes are Mu Bai and Shu Lien. The villain is clearly the Jade Fox. Though the CCP banned the wuxia genre, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was preceded by two decades in which wuxia was highly popular. In this sense, Ang Lee's film is not groundbreaking.

What IS striking about the film is its characters. Though Jen Yu, the rebellious yet talented nobleman's daughter, often steals the show, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is really about Mu Bai and Shu Lien -- their dialogue, decisions, and interactions with one another drives the film.

In particular, both Mu Bai and Shu Lien seem trapped, despite Jen’s belief in a carefree, adventurous warrior lifestyle. Mu Bai’s situation is especially unique – his trap is framed in Buddhist ideology. Though his swordsmenship requires focus and presence of mind, as evidenced from his lectures to Jen, he cannot escape one material attachment. This attachment is not his sword and fighting lifestyle, as he seems to believe at the beginning of the film by giving away his sword, but to Shu Lien. When he feels Shu Lien’s calloused hand on his face, he is devastated knowing of her impermanence – that she will one day cease to live. With incredible irony and tragedy, he dies by the Jade Fox’s hand possibly because of his attachment to revenge, and ultimately cannot bring himself to spend his dying breaths mediating and freeing his mind -- his attachment to Shu Lien has engulfed him to the point where he would prefer spending his afterlife in hell as a hungry ghost than in heaven as an enlightened spirit!

Similarly, Shu Lien is trapped by her honor. Despite the death of her first fiancee, Meng, she feel compelled to honor his memory. Though she is praised for successfully inheriting her father’s security business, she subtly appears resigned to this obligation in memory of her father. In this way, she is also limited by the cordial manner in which she handles palatial politics; her politically realistic yet slow methods are complemented by Mu Bai’s more direct and perhaps subtly more confrontational manner.

Mu Bai and Shu Lien’s heroic flaws is reminiscent of Greek tragedy or modern Western superhero tales except framed in Eastern culture. In a way, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon also utilized the commonly recognized five-part act, with clearly delineated sections of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and, as in this tragedy, bittersweet catastrophe.

Despite Mu Bai and Shu Lien’s clear star roles, Jen cannot be marginalized – she is in fact the movie’s title character; she is the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. As a curiously reversed Chinese proverb (“Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger” is the original), “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” represents amazing talent kept hidden. In the film, this is unmistakably Jen’s role, as she hides her skill from even her master, the Jade Fox. Whatever her reasons were, the audience realizes that Jen has effectively betrayed her master by allowing her master to stagnate while enhancing her own skill. This irony is enhanced by the fact that she may not even be aware of the consequences of her actions, as evidenced by her continued capriciousness throughout the film and her about-face turn-of-heart after hearing the dying Jade Fox’s words.

Ang Lee augments his characters with superb environmental cues and landscapes. As Shu Lien arrives in Peking, the camera pans from her cart’s wheels to a magnificient shot of the Forbidden City. There is a noisy bustle and a variety of colors, depicting a huge diversity in the Chinese capital. In contrast, Shu Lien and Mu Bai’s early fights with the Jade Fox and Jen presents the ever mysterious and perhaps villainous black, which then switch to a breathtaking yellow desert landscape that paints Lo’s outlaw character.

Though Jen’s wedding is pictured in the traditional red, she is immediately shown in a tomboy white and brown afterward in a commoner’s restaurant, again highlighting her individuality and rebelliousness. Her final battle against Mu Bai presents a backdrop of green, willowy bamboo trees. Her pointed struggle to force the bamboo to bend to her will sharply contrasts to Mu Bai’s serene ability to flow with the tree’s movements.

Overall, Ang Lee was fortunate enough to break from earlier wuxia productions that were much lower in budget and could not film outside of indoor sets, but even so, his ability to use the landscape in such a stunning way is laudable.

In closing, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is no crouching or hidden gem of dramatic entertainment and certainly marked Ang Lee’s place in both Western and Eastern film culture.