Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

[One Armed Boxer]

12 hours ago, WangYu said:

In case of crouching tiger hidden dragon it is just weird that a martial arts picture wins a major award, it never happened before or after. What makes this film stand out to other greats like “dragon inn” or “ip man”?

For me personally it's a combination of many things - Ang Lee's nuanced direction, Chow Yun Fat's restrained and melancholic performance, the integration of Yuen Woo-Ping's choreography into the story, a multi-layered plot showing the conflict between being bound by tradition and following your heart. The fact that it's a martial arts picture is just one factor, as an overall movie it takes all of the other ingredients to create something truly special.  I'd say @Drunken Monk put it best in his earlier post in this thread - 

 

[DrNgor]

On 7/10/2021 at 2:22 PM, WangYu said:

In case of crouching tiger hidden dragon it is just weird that a martial arts picture wins a major award, it never happened before or after. What makes this film stand out to other greats like “dragon inn” or “ip man”?

A lot of it has to do with timing. New Dragon Inn would have been "too Chinese" for the Awards Committee in 1992, what with its extreme violence, Ching Siu-Tung wire-fu, cannibalism subplot, etc. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came out a year after The Matrix had made wire-fu more palpable to mainstream Western audiences. It would have been easier for critics and committee members to wrap their heads around the more fantastical aspects of the movie at that point than seven or eight years before. Moreover, Ang Lee had accumulated a lot cred and good will in the West: his Eat, Drink, Man, Woman had already gotten nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar and his western films were all critically-acclaimed. Add that to those merits discussed by @One Armed Boxer and @Drunken Monk and it makes sense for the film's recognition.

Check out my essay on the film:

 

Edited July 11, 2021 by DrNgor

[Super Ninja]

On 7/11/2021 at 7:44 AM, One Armed Boxer said:

For me personally it's a combination of many things - Ang Lee's nuanced direction, Chow Yun Fat's restrained and melancholic performance, the integration of Yuen Woo-Ping's choreography into the story, a multi-layered plot showing the conflict between being bound by tradition and following your heart. The fact that it's a martial arts picture is just one factor, as an overall movie it takes all of the other ingredients to create something truly special.  I'd say @Drunken Monk put it best in his earlier post in this thread - 

 

I was shocked to see "CTHD" didn't get a lot of love from the fellow members here so I'm glad to finally see a positive review. I fully agree with @Drunken Monk, a true masterpiece, one with a good plot, depth, fleshed out characters; everything martial arts movies often lack, but with recognizable themes and motives such as revenge, stolen manuscript, teacher-student relationship and more.

It's a visual feast, a poetry in motion, both intimate and epic, and one of the most beautiful martial arts films ever made.

On top of all, there's nothing to complain about when it comes to action. You get wires, you get grounded exchanges, it's Iron Monkey and Matrix combined, and in my humble opinion the wirework and the use of doubles are among the best ever.

In short, this is the closest to a perfect martial arts movie, it doesn't sacrifice anything on account of action and the action is great despite more emphasis is being put on other, usually neglected aspects.

Ang Lee wanted to make a martial arts movie after completing Pushing Hands (1991). Stealing Fists was suppose to be a wuxia about a disciple trying to steal kung fu skills from his master. Personally, I'm glad the project failed and we got "CTHD" instead. Here's what Ang Lee has to say about martial arts movies.

There's a part of me that feels, unless you make a martial arts film, you are not a real filmmaker. It's pure cinema energy - it's raw, it's cool, it's fun. It's why you want to be a filmmaker.

[Michael L.]

Don’t forget that getting big film awards has a good deal to do with the companies producing and distributing films. I was running art house movie theaters when back in the early ‘90s… nobody major distributed New Dragon Inn, for example, in the US. It was on the circuit that saw copies of the film go from city to city and play in auditoriums rented by local people interested in running Hong Kong films. Theaters I ran used to rent out to folks showing Indian films (we dealt with something like three different groups showing films in different dialects; the guy who did the Hong Kong films had a deal with to rent out a theater at midnight on Fridays). 

That means nobody ran ads in Variety or other trade papers (and I read them; we booked our own films) promoting New Dragon Inn or other Chinese lanaguage films for Academy Awards or Golden Globes, nobody was lobbying Academ members behind the scenes. But Crouching Tiger? Sony Classics was behind it, which is why in most cities you could go see it at a normal time any day of the week during its run. And the Sony Classics marketing team was busy not only trying to attract movie goers but Academy members!