02/13/2001

By Charles Ealy / The Dallas Morning News

Once in a great while, a movie engages us so thoroughly that we slip the surly bonds of Earth and experience a rare moment of transcendence.

	Sony Pictures Classics
	Zhang Zi-Yi and Chow Yun Fat in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is such a movie. To be a part of it is to soar, both physically and spiritually. It's as if humans have finally figured out how to defy gravity.

The characters in Crouching Tiger run up straight walls. They sail from rooftop to rooftop. They dance on willowy groves of bamboo. They glide across water. They literally use their willpower to fly, or so it seems. And without even being asked to believe, we surrender to the sheer audacity of it all.

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Full of lurching and ducking and kicking and slashing, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon demands to be felt. Most importantly, it makes us want to move - to be a part of the action, like no movie has ever done before.

And yet director Ang Lee, best known for such sophisticated fare as Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm, still manages to integrate the action into a meaningful story - an achievement that makes this much more than an action flick. Mr. Lee wants us to experience a spirituality, to explore a culture based on duality and to recognize the careful balancing act of the yin and yang reflected in his tale.

The basic story, derived from a series of Chinese martial-arts novels, focuses on an honorable man and woman who have never declared their love for each other, choosing instead to follow the rules of an oppressive society and devote themselves to martial arts. It's set in early 19th-century China - before opium-trading Western powers divided the empire and undermined a culture based on Taoist values.

Chow Yun Fat plays Li Mu Bai, a maturing warrior who is ready to retire and give his fabled sword, Green Destiny, to an elderly Beijing friend for safekeeping. Li's female counterpart, Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), is entrusted with delivering the sword, which she does.

But later that evening, a lithe, masked thief skips across the rooftops and slips into the room where Green Destiny lies. Ms. Yeoh's character is alerted in time to see the thief spiriting away the trophy, and she gives pursuit, leading to the first of many exquisitely choreographed battle scenes. (If the action seems familiar, it's because the man behind it is Yuen Wo-Ping, who gained fame in the States for The Matrix.)

Amid this action, we begin to learn the story of another couple - and it's not at all subsidiary to the first tale. Instead, it gives us a look at two young "crouching tigers" who explore their passions and refuse to follow the rules.

A stunning newcomer, Zhang Ziyi, plays the spirited Jen, daughter of a prominent political figure who is staying at the home where Green Destiny has been delivered. Although promised in marriage to another aristocrat, she has fallen in love with an outlaw from the Gobi Desert, Lo (Chang Chen). During one of Jen's reveries, we see in flashback how the two met, how they explored love and how they came to be separated.

The extended flashback isn't contrived or out of place (as flashbacks are wont to be). Instead, the desert-based story illuminates for American and European audiences the close spiritual ties between martial-arts films and the classic Westerns of old Hollywood - a point that director Lee clearly wants to make. And when Lo returns to Beijing from the desert to revive his romance with Jen, the two couples' tales come together. Crouching tigers meet hidden dragons.

This is still far too simple a description, as students of Chinese literature and culture will be quick to point out. No one in this movie is all tiger - young, brazen and emotional - or dragon - wise, reserved yet powerful. Rather, each character has aspects of both. The title draws upon a Chinese proverb that illustrates situations where nothing is as it seems - where the world is full of hidden heroes and legends.

So it makes sense that a noble warrior can be afraid to declare his love; that the woman he loves can exhibit calm while repressing a passionate yearning; and that a young aristocrat can find the strength to rebel against an arranged marriage.

The couples themselves have a tiger/dragon relationship, as well. For instance, Jen has the reserve of a dragon - and her name has the Chinese word for dragon embedded in it. Lo, meanwhile, is her tiger, a rebel who is ready to pounce. But both are seeking the Tao, or the Way, and the movie ultimately revolves around their epic search.

Adding yet another layer of ambiguity is the female bandit Jade Fox, who has killed the revered master of Li and upon whom Li has sworn revenge. As it turns out, Jade Fox (played by kung-fu legend Cheng Pei-Pei) is indirectly connected with the theft of Green Destiny, setting up several more martial-arts exhibitions that will stun audiences.

But even the most casual observer will notice that this film isn't about fighting men. It's about fighting women, too. And these women steal the show.

As always, Ms. Yeoh, one of Asia's most popular female action stars, gives an inspired performance; each of her movements reveals volumes about her feelings. But the real heroine is Ms. Zhang, who takes our breath away with her physical lyricism. Ms. Cheng, as Jade Fox, also creates one of the most believable, complex villains in years.

Seeing is believing. Suffice it to say that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon draws upon a long tradition of martial-arts films, simultaneously honoring them and firmly establishing them as a legitimate art form.

You can't help moving to the action's rhythms - and being moved as well.