Hacker Cinema
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
卧虎藏龍
2000 · Film · 120 min
Directed by Ang Lee
Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically-skilled, teenage nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.
9 positive11 neutralfrom 20 commenters
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24 comments on Hacker News
Wandering Earth
Flavors of Youth
House of Flying Daggers
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Quite a lot more if you include Hong Kong, but a lot of those films were developed under British rule.
No one in Asia wants to visit nyc because of friends, sienfeld or sex and the city. These shows to them are mostly raw garbage. The reason is because these shows are culturally focused. Its catered exclusively to the type of American humor and values that most people in Asia do not give two shits about.
They want to visit Hollywood because they want to see the technology that built these blockbusters because internationally everyone understands heroism, sacrifice and special effects. Additionally these movies aren’t watered down. The writing and the effects have gone through years of development to get to that point. It just doesn’t cater to your sensibilities. The term is snobbish.
The writing for Seinfeld and friends and sex and the city took years to get where they are. These aren’t inborn cultural talents. You can easily compare stories from past American movies to see how cheesy and stupid they are. It takes development for stories to come to where they are today and it’s a back and forth between the audience and writers. As writers write more stories audience members learn and become more sophisticated and twists and humor that worked in the past become cliche. Why do you think you’re too snobbish to appreciate something like avengers? You think someone in the 50s wouldn’t appreciate it? Fuck honestly if the whole mcu up till end game came out in the 50s that whole thing would win a Nobel peace prize.
China is 100% going through this learning process right now. The audiences sophistication and the writers as a result are growing at a breakneck pace. I think movies from China that might appeal to who you are is crouching tiger hidden dragon or Hero as these movies share the more universally appreciated parts of Chinese culture and since that is what you’re interested in, I recommend them to you.
Mostly, I will watch a movie a second or third time if I am tired and it's on TV and cannot sleep. So there is only a small intersection of films that I have watched multiple times and would admit to watching even once.
So excluding those, from most to least (probably).
- elf
- the Bourne identity
- groundhog day
- ronin
- Willie Wonka (the original)
- the fifth element
- ghost dog (any Jim Jarmusch)
- the blues brothers
- singin' in the rain
- crouching tiger, hidden dragon
- my friend totoro
I am probably leaving out quite a few, but all these films I have seen enough times to reconstruct in my head, scene by scene.
> How about the new Mulan?
Mulan sucked, but mostly because "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" did the plot better 20 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzkhVVFRIIg
Mulan fell into the same wishy-washy problem so many of these other recent movies fell into. Was Mulan supposed to be a wuxia / Chi-based kung fu movie where one exceptional warrior makes huge differences on the battlefield? Erm, maybe.
Or was it supposed to be a somewhat gritty war movie akin to the original cartoon? Erm... also yes, sometimes.
As such, we never got the spectacular fight scenes you'd normally get from Wuxia, nor did we get the grittier, tactical kind of Mulan that the cartoon was. The directors were faced with a choice and they chose "both", which in practice means "neither".
It's hard not to be cynical or entertain thoughts of Hollywood planning these things in case the show sucks. Because they can clearly do entertainment with diverse casting, non-white people, female leads and succeed:
- Tom Holland Spider-Man does not have a red-head MJ, Flash is Indian and the made up best friend is Filipino. - Domino in the Dead Pool movies is black. NTW doesn't seem to have the same powers and is gay. But I'm not sure what the current character status is. - Everything Everywhere All at Once - Black Panther - Shang Chi - Jordan Peele does good work: Nope, Us, Candy Man, Get Out - The Expanse - Life of Pi - Sandman swaps a bunch of stuff
Appetite for completely foreign media is much slower in English speaking countries but once in a while you get a major break through: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Parasite.
For iconic female leads: Terminator has Sarah Connor, Ripley from Aliens, The Bride from Kill Bill, Charlize Therons character in the last Mad Max movie. Buffy. I apologize for how narrow the genres are here.
I don't think the popular media for anything I just mentioned was too negative (maybe Black Panther?). Is it really just the fans? I bet the overlap of Rings of Power watchers and watchers of the stuff I listed is pretty big ...
edit: formatting
Exactly. When I saw the reaction to RRR, I was reminded of how “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” was received in the US back then. It would be akin to an Asian / Indian audience only watching A sub genre of movies made in Hollywood.
KFP is one of my favorite movies; I (an adult without kids) watch it yearly on my birthday. It's got so much heart and it's fight choreography is up there with other all-timers (ip man, crouching tiger, hidden dragon, the matrix).
If you only watch one clip, check out this segment from the training montage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCk9VAxEpD0&t=156s
Their use of visual boundaries and transitions is just so superb.
I bring up "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" because its also on the same fantasy scale as Shang Chi and other Marvel films. The feats are fully superhuman, and super-physical. Physics just don't work like that.
> Marvel’s best raw martial arts fights were probably on the likes of Daredevil (Netflix), Winter Soldier, and the Falcon Series.
That's called "Street Level" superheroes. There are superpowers, but they're much toned down. Its a different genre.
Wuxia theater is older than film... deriving from a culture that's thousands of years old. Ancient theater, literary prose, philosophy, martial arts, and yes... swinging around on wires on stage.
EDIT: I distinctly remember some of the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" weapon-scenes to be incredible katas that formed a cohesive story. Its an element of dance and martial arts, less practical and less pragmatic but beautiful nonetheless. A lot of them didn't involve wires at all.
I'm not necessarily saying you should like Wuxia, but perhaps you should try to understand it? Its definitely not about being believable, any more so than Odysseus's voyage was believable. (Or perhaps: an opera about a princess who falls asleep because of a sewing needle, and a prince who fights a dragon so that he could wake her up by kissing her).
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Shang-Chi had an element of Wuxia in it. Not a lot, but enough for me to get what they were going for.
> Shang chi
Shang Chi had some good long-shot Wuxia-style scenes.
It wasn't as good as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" but unlike the rest of the Marvel films, Shang Chi actually had proper fight scenes in them.
But you're right in that most Marvel scenes make no damn sense from an action perspective. I'm constantly annoyed by their cuts personally. I'm just surprised that you threw Shang Chi into the same boat, because Shang Chi had more proper action shots than I can remember.
I'm not talking about the CGI-dragon fight at the end (which went back into the Marvel mold of CGI + jump cuts). I'm talking about like, the first scene between Ying Li and Weng Wu (Shang-Chi's mother and father). Or the Bus-fight, which was pretty good IMO. At least, good by Marvel standards (which are pretty bad).
It doesn't hold a candle compared to a good Jackie Chan scene, but at least they kept the camera still _SOMETIMES_ in Shang-Chi, rather than never keeping the damn camera still.
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That being said, I enjoy Marvel films. I just wish they shot the action better.
Li also turned down the role of Li Mu Bai in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon which is arguably more of a loss to cinema but that was to support his wife during pregnancy.
These shows are to sell movies / videos / CDs / subscriptions. They are hours-long infomercials wrapped up in gowns and tuxedoes telling you what you should watch and listen to and buy if you haven't already.
Parasite is a perfect example. The last subtitled movie Americans sat through with any sort of audience capacity was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Without the Oscar hype, that movie is a flop in the US. But because it got that hype, people were trying to watch it any way they could, even if that meant spending extra on a streaming service to watch it from home.
> "I don’t expect much from them since they made Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2 in English."
that movie was awful, especially in comparison to the original. it had none of the innuendo and poetry, more a punch in the face.
imho, the hollowing out of american film began ~20 years ago, with netflix being just a milestone in that evolution. i've been much more interested in foreign films as a result. i'm currently going through the recent back canon of korean films (take care of my cat, oldboy, mother), and it's been great! reminds me of the 90's in american film--while today's films are technically and visually more sophisticated, storytelling and character development has suffered measurably. older french films (and others) are great for that too. the big american blockbusters are fun to watch in the moment but feel like empty calories afterwards.
After seeing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I became a fan of subtitled movies. Part way through the movie it felt like I understood Mandarin.
Is it also "nouveau riche status seeking" to watch movies in languages we don't speak?
Is "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" not a valid film for me to enjoy because I can't appreciate it in its native Mandarin? That sounds even more pompous to me.
I used to like action movies but they had a somewhat realistic everyman element to them and the characters were if not entirely relateable at least sympathetic. But Hollywood's love affair with impossible physics; shooting someone doesn't send them flying, you can't outrun explosions, not everything explodes into a giant gasoline ball of flame, etc, has ramped up to the point where it takes me out of suspension of disbelief. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and everyone's flying around on wires? Sure, it's genre-specific and makes sense in context. Every movie ever made in the last 10 years? Not so much.
Although I disagree and would argue a movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is very much useful art, I'm also in favor of rolling back the last thirty years of Disney and MPAA-sponsored legislation and restoring copying duration to something reasonable like 30 years and throwing out the DMCA entirely.
The Tao Te Ching is a book about daoism that entered into a religious practice that was already happening. It is not the only book, there is also (for example) the Yinfujing. Much teaching is also done orally.
Read any book about Daoist monks in China and you will surely come across some of their suffering and other antics. The ending of the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is a popular reference to such a suicide.
And yet, have you seen the 4k content out there? Breaking Bad was awesome, but is that really better in 4k than, say BSG or Planet Earth? I bought a 4k TV to use as a monitor several months back and started researching content - Most of it is eyebrow-raising, to say the least. I remember when 720/1080 were first introduced, there was an expected dearth of content, but at least what was out there was worth high-def (flyovers of tourist destinations, PBS nature documentaries, etc). For example - Here's some of Netflix's offerings in 4k:
Series: House of Cards Marco Polo Breaking Bad The Blacklist
Movies and Documentaries Smurfs 2 Philadelphia Jerry Macguire Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Oceans (documentary) Forests (documentary) Flowers (documentary)
Edit:formatting
Blacks are about 20% of the US population, while Netflix has some demographic information I can't really imagine they are tracking race of the viewer (I could just imagine the shit storm that could erupt if they did), they do however classify films based on various categories.
Netflix didn't invent black cinema people did and way before Netflix was even an idea in some one's head here are for example Black Cinema film festivals:
American Black Film Festival Freaknik Hollywood Black Film Festival International Black Women's Film Festival The Kidflix Film Fest of Bed-Stuy North Carolina Black Film Festival Pan African Film Festival Roxbury Film Festival San Diego Black Film Festival Women of Color Film Festival
The US also has "black only" film awards including the African-American Film Critics Association Awards, Black Reel Awards, Black Movie Awards and so on.
So after watching multiple movies that most likely their only common denominator was "Black Female Directors" Netflix suggested you a category that contain additional movies that fit your recent viewing habits.
On a side note, I watched the new Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Marco Polo special on Netflix recently and all of a sudden what would you know? Chinese / Asian martial arts films appeared and took over my suggestion feed.
However after binge watching Cosmos and The Inexplicable Universe I wasn't greeted with the suggestion of the category "Documentaries by Black Astro-Physicists" but rather with "Space and Nature Documentations".
> MUBI has spent years cultivating that audience with a selection of artsy, obscure films that don't usually appear on Netflix or Hulu. (It originally launched under the name "The Auteurs," before rebranding in 2010 as MUBI — a play on accented pronunciations of "movie," and after a city in Nigeria.) On Monday, the titles available on the company's US site included Bernardo Bertolucci's 1970 classic The Conformist, and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, by Chan-wook Park. Occasionally, it features more mainstream movies like Sin City, currently available on the French site, though the majority are far more obscure. A new title is added every day as another drops out, meaning that only 30 films are available for streaming at any given time.
In defense of Netflix (not that the "Goliath" in this comparison needs defenders)...but "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" has been available on streaming Netflix for, as far as I remember, the time that I've been a customer, which was basically when streaming started. "Mr. Vengeance" is the first in "The Vengeance Trilogy" that includes the more well-known "Oldboy" [1] and "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance"...I think the entire trilogy has been on Netflix for years (including the regrettable American remake of Oldboy, but can't fault Netflix for having it...)
Even as Netflix's blockbuster selection has faded (with the ending of the Starz deal, and in comparison to HBONow)...I've never had a complaint about their selection of the most well-known and recent foreign indies. "Let the Right One In", "The Hunt", "Force Majeure", The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy...though sure, they could always have more (and obviously, I don't know enough of the foreign scene to know all of the gems that they don't have).
But I imagine the problem for Netflix isn't that they do a shitty job of curation...but that the deals end up not being financially valuable to them, as it was in the Starz case. Ang Lee's movies ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Lust, Caution") were long-time selections, but I've just noticed they are no longer available for streaming.
edit: if you liked Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is definitely worth checking out. But whereas Oldboy was entertaining on top of being emotionally extreme...I'd argue "Mr. Vengeance" is much more of an artistic achievement, but at the cost of being "entertaining". In fact, I get a little ill at the thought of re-watching it, even though I own it on DVD.
[1] http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/oldboy-2005 -- Ebert's review here is so glowing that not only did it get me to seek out Oldboy, but it changed the way I think of foreign movies in comparison to Hollywood.
> How many non-American (and non anglophone, e.g British) bands ever make into the top 10?
Well, there's Gotye, for starters.
Oh, wait, they're not allowed to speak English? Uh, how about PSY? Or Selena? Or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or any of the various Hong Kong Jackie Chan movies that were very popular over here? Or the insane popularity of K-pop and J-pop?
Or Keith Urban, the NZ/Australian country music star?
Whatever else you might say, it's not protectionism that's keeping foreign media off the shores. In the U.S. we don't "import" web sites simply because we don't have to, nothing more or less.
Production quality and artistic quality are not the same things.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a low budget film, for example. It's budget was about 9% of the budget of Waterworld.
I think that is part of it, but Hollywood does not explain all of it. Chow Yun-Fat was big in Europe long before 'Anna and the King'. When we put him into video games, we put him in the roles that he played in his HK films, the roles that he played in his american films were far less memorable. Zhang Ziyi is an amazing actress and the world knows this because of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', though 'Rush Hour 2' was really good, as you said. And women the world over LOVE the film '2046'. I take that DVD with me where ever I go, in case I get a date. It is ALWAYS a winner. With a name like 'caligula' you should make sure this movie is in your collection too.
Having been obliged to eat at crappy Chinese restaurants from China Town in Havana, Cuba to Hong Kong, I have to say that it all tastes the same to me. That said, I am sure if I set my sites on the higher end restaurants I would probably find the difference in the 'experience' that you spoke about.
I think maybe you might be right about Hollywood pushing martial arts though. This still leaves open the question of the worldwide fixation with things like Chinese medicines for example.