Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

I saw this once years ago, and I remember liking it, but outside of the flying sword fighting I didn't remember anything about it. And I liked it again this time, and I will be giving it a very generous 4-and-a-half star grade. But that being said, I don't think it's the cinema masterpiece it's been billed as. Why?

Because there would be almost no conflict in the movie if Jen were not so stupid and annoying. If she had taken the very generous carrots offered by people who cared about her like Shu Lien and Mu Bai (and multiple times, beyond all rationality), instead of slapping away their hands of friendship for no reason whatsoever, the movie wouldn't exist. And you say, Matt, dude, that sort of plot related-stupidity has been around since Shakespeare! Let it go! You know why I don't review Shakespeare stuff as a rule (there is a review for Joss Whedon's version of Much Ado About Nothing somewhere on my Dreamwidth Journal)? It's because I know I'd complain about that, and since the stuff was written centuries ago, that's not remotely fair, so I'm letting you guys have that without me pooping on it. But this movie was made in 2000. Yes, the novel is was based on was made in 1942, but I DO crap on badly-written stuff from that era. I'll give up talking smack about Shakespeare's shaky characterization regarding plot-related stupidity for you guys. Not this movie.

I freaking LOVED the climax. I laughed when Shu Lien picks out this heavy staff and it turns out to be too heavy to lift. Say what you will about this subtitled, foreign-language, Oscar-winning, prestige picture: It's also a crowdpleaser. Which is awesome. The fight in the trees was great too.

I'm not gonna nitpick Jen's stupidity to death too much further, but I do want to say for the record how idiotic I think the comb thing is. It's built into the scenario that the lengths she goes to get back such a trivial object are a bit ludicrous. But my objection is that if it really was that special to her, and she was really that protective of it, maybe not lean out the carriage window with it loosely in her hand during the middle of a bandit raid. Just a small piece of advice for a stupid character who would never listen to me both because I'm not toxic and because the advice is actually good.

But yeah, I liked it. But I see the flaws now. ****1/2.