Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

They are challenged in this incredibly political tale by two extreme forces: anex-disciple and murderer of Bai's teacher, and Jen (Zhang Zhiyi), the daughter ofBeijing's governor. While the ex-disciple represents a reactionary response to a life ofdenial (she couldn't become a warrior because of her female status), Jen is shown anglingfor a life of freedom and adventure. She steals Bai's sword with the murderer's help, butinstead of pursuing and taming her, Bai urges Jen to become his disciple.

He is mesmerised as much as by her skills as by her spirit—the feral Jenultimately rejects conventional values in favour of a life of crime and passion with Lo,the untamed bandit of the mountains. Shu and Jen are also locked in a battle of respectand competition; Shu sees in Jen the kind of freedom she might have liked to enjoy. Jen,in turn, wants Shu to accept her—she is fascinated by the old warrior code, but onher own terms. This myriad kaleidoscope of motives, desires and passions sets the stagefor a series of complex dramatic confrontations, centered on a simple idea involving asword.

This is without doubt one of the best scripts to have come out of Hollywood in recentyears. Ang Lee stays with the characters to present a cinematic universe of stealth,beauty, concealed power and reflection—a world of silence and violence where warriorsfly daintily through breathtaking landscapes before the final kill.

Bai falls in the category of thinking, ageing warriors, symbolised by the ClintEastwood character, notably in Unforgiven and Space Cowboys. But Jen carries the kind offierce, merciless commitment to freedom, not seen in American cinema for ages. Chun YunFat and Zhang Zhiyi underplay and dramatise as per the need of the situation, oftenabandoning Hollywood-style histrionics to express the multi-layered demands of an easternsubject.