![]() Pledged to an arranged marriage, Jen has a secret passion for a desert bandit. It also recounts the desperation of Jen, the daughter of a high official. To many Asian viewers Crouching Tiger is slow, boring, and bloodless, both unrealistic and nothing new.īased on an old story published by Wang Dulu in the 1920s, Crouching Tiger is a nineteenth century tale about the disenchantment of the great Daoist swordsman Li Mu Bai, who seeks to give up his magical sword and his xiawu, chivalric-warrior lifestyle, and the repressed love between Mu Bai and Yu Shulien, who is equally courageous and accomplished with a sword. The fighting doesn’t even begin until after the film’s first fifteen minutes, and only two of the leading characters are experienced martial artists. Most serious, however, is that Crouching Tiger is not the typical kung fu picture Asian audiences expect. Michelle Yeoh, in the crucial role of Yu Shulien, can’t even read Chinese and had to learn her part line by line in pinyin. Why such a weak reception in East Asia? Some Mandarinspeaking audiences, noting that only one of Crouching Tiger’s stars is a native speaker, consider the film not “really” Chinese because of its Taiwanese and American influences. Asian responses have been supportive only in Singapore and Taiwan where director Ang Lee is considered a homeboy. In Beijing it played to near-empty theaters in Shanghai audiences hissed at the fanciful flights across rooftops and atop swaying bamboo. Despite critical acclaim and the involvement of local stars like Chow Yun Fat, Crouching Tiger has performed well below expectations in China, both in Hong Kong and the Mainland, as well as in Korea and Japan. Commentators applaud its challenging the notion of “foreign language” as a genre category by inducing mainstream audiences to embrace a movie with subtitles.Įast Asian audiences, however, have been less enthusiastic. It has also won numerous awards for best picture and director and received a total of ten Oscar nominations, winning four in original music score, art direction, cinematography and foreign language film categories. Popular with general audiences and critics alike, Crouching Tiger was a hit at the Cannes Film Festival where audiences burst into applause after the first fight scene. The $100 million collected in its first three and a half months is double the amount reaped by the next-highest-earning foreign film, Life Is Beautiful.
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