October 23rd, 2005
Was it really the year 2000 when this came out? I’m looking at the Wo hu cang long IMdb page and I can’t quite believe it. I half remember seeing a clip of this film, I think perhaps on a Christmas eve. So would that be nearly 2001? I don’t know. I marvel at how few years ago it was, because then I didn’t find Eastern subtitled films at all interesting. In fact I found them positively boring.
I previously blogged about how much I enjoyed House of the Flying Daggers, this is really the film that started it all. I found that watching subtitles was just like reading a moving book, and after a while you don’t realise you’re not actually hearing the words. Actually I can’t quite believe that it was February when I saw Daggers. I can remember it as if it were last week, it was a school night, and cold enough for a jacket. Since then the theatre I saw it at The Marina threatened to stop showing films as it is council run and they decided that showing films cheaply wasn’t sustainable. Luckily though, they decided not to stop screenings after some pressure from the public. I love it there; it’s the nice theatre’y smell of fake smoke and sweets that gets me.
Like House of the Flying Daggers Ziyi Zhang stars, this time as Jen. She looks rather younger in Crouching Tiger but evidently her mysterious nature has always been something she can show on screen. It’s clear that Daggers borrowed ideas from Crouching Tiger, even whole scenes: her smoldering adversary Lo (Chen Chang) promises to sing while she is bathing so she knows where he is. Actually come to think of it, the scene wasn’t really copied in Daggers; more like played off. Something I appreciate now.
The other plot line running through was the relationship between Yu Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai played by Michelle Yeoh (whom you might remember as Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies) and Yun-Fat Chow respectively. The relationship was interesting because it slanted towards the Eastern ideas of honour, I’m aware that as we live in modern times things aren’t really like that any more, but it’s still interesting because Western culture is different in that respect.
Some people may not like this film, they may call it over-rated, I can understand because I used to feel the same. I don’t really mind though, I really enjoyed this film. By all means just try it if you’re getting fed up of thinking literally, happy endings, and blockbusters.
October 25th, 2005 at 7:11 am
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was lovely. When I saw Hero sometime during the first quarter of the year I recalled Crouching Tiger, as many elements of that film were mirrored.
Can’t say I’ve even heard of House of Flying Daggers. Might look into it if it’s screened somewhere nearby.
Cheers.
October 25th, 2005 at 9:30 pm
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a wonderufl movie, and you absolutely had to watch it with subtitles. Yes, the beginning was a little boring, but once you make youself sit down and watch it, you’re like “oh… my… god.”
October 26th, 2005 at 10:20 am
I’ve seen Hero as well, the desert bits were similar to Crouching Tiger.
House of the Flying Daggers is a good film to watch, it has the best sound out of the three mentioned in my opinion.