Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

What an astonishingly beautiful movie! This is not your typical chop sokky quickie. Part of the sheer joy in watching is the exquisite, dare I say loving attention to the setting. It changes from city to mountains, desert to forest, wet to dry, and lets you appreciate the beauty of each. This is all quite apart from the actors. The scenery alone is worth the price of admission.

So is the acting. Intellectually one knows the actors are suspended from wires, but it's so light, so graceful, so fitting that you don't really notice. It's easier to believe that some mystical teachings have taught people to warp gravity to their will. Even the fight scenes where the actor's feet are firmly on the ground are amazingly good. I don't want to think of all the training and choreography that went into what we see on film. This is more intricate, more intimate than any dance. You might think that because women are involved in almost all the fight scenes it's tame, but you'd be wrong. Very wrong.

They've avoided all the cliché bad guy beats up all the good guys and nearly does in the hero, who then tunes into his own mystical powers to come back to save the girl and put the bad guy in his place. This is a beautiful story of love and separation, courage, and behind the scenes scheming. Plus any number of fight scenes that are never less than good, several that are among the best ever filmed, and one that is unique. I've never seen, or even heard of a sword fight in the treetops. At least a half a dozen times I wanted to hit the rewind button to watch things over.

I've been reading reviews of this movie in various places, and they all were very favourable. Still, other movies have been favourably reviewed and we didn't go see them. Partly what changed our mind was Linda having received $20 worth of gift certificates from work. And partly a friend saying it wouldn't be the same on a small screen. They are so right.

The last movie we saw in the theater was the new Star Wars. (For those that care, we were not impressed.) We saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon up at Silver City, which is at the very opposite end of Calgary from where we live. The movie was worth the drive, but the theater isn't. The seats are uncomfortable, and the commercials are loud. Much louder than what I'm comfortable with. At least we weren't surrounded by screaming hordes of kids.

I said earlier I wanted to hit the rewind button. You can't do that in a theater, but you can on video or DVD. This is one that I'm going to get as soon as it's released on DVD. I can't wait to see what extras are included.