Defining Favourites: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Ang Lee's wuxia hit remains one of the greatest films of the 21st century.

image via Sony Pictures Classics (provided by TMDb)

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• Directed by Ang Lee

• Screenplay by Wang Hui-ling, James Schamus, Tsai Kuo-jung, based on the novel by Wang Dulu

• Produced by Bill Kong, Hsu Li-Kong, Ang Lee

• Starring Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen, Lang Sihung, Cheng Pei-pei

• Premiere Date: May 18, 2000

• Running Time: 120 minutes

This piece may contain spoilers for the film. If you have not seen the film, please proceed with caution.

I vividly remember that feeling of watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for the first time as a teenager, and being blown away watching it all unfold. And it’s a feeling that I was excited to experience once more with seeing the film on the big screen for the first time only as it was re-released alongside the general awards season hype surrounding Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once. To say the least, there aren’t very many films I can think of that have inspired such euphoria in me when I was young and it still leaves me in awe despite knowing every beat. But there are many more reasons as to why I view this wuxia film not only to be among the finest action films of the twenty-first century, but as Ang Lee’s masterpiece too.

From the first moment we see our hero, Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-fat) enter the picture, it’s clear the sort of martial arts movie that you’re watching in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In fact, because he’s operating in a mood that calls back to the films of King Hu and the Shaw Brothers studio – where we’re seeing a wuxia film less in that same light as the popular kung fu films of Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan but one showing martial arts as a form of meditation, and finding inner peace. That’s always been the essence of what makes Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon so special, I’d found, because it feels like Ang Lee is letting you take in the action so as to inspire a feeling of zen.