A movie nominated for ten Oscars. A movie described by critics as sheer magic. It was to experience this magic that I walked into a theatre. And what an experience. The movie felt like a incorrectly put together jigsaw puzzle. I did watch the magic of cinema…..backfiring
The films starts out well, with the warrior, Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat), wanting to shed of his bloody past and make a new peaceful beginning. He asks his friend and unrequited love Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) to hand over his famed sword ’The Green Destiny’ to a wise aging gentleman, whose name I do not remember.
Yu Shu Lien delivers the sword and the is where the movie takes off. The sword is stolen. Yu Shu Lien chases the thief, literally flying in the air and off the roofs, but does not manage to catch her. The thief, Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi) is the daughter of a governor who is under the bad influence of her governess Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei). Jade Fox, an evil but failed warrior, had to go undercover fearing revenge, after she had treacherously murdered Li Mu bai’s teacher and mentor. In Jen yu, she sees an pupil who can fulfil her dream
For some strange reason Jen Yu, keeps stealing the sword and keeps returning it back. In the mean time Li Mu Bai busies himself in trying to get to Jade Fox and at the same time, trying to get Jen Yu, in whom he sees tremendous potential and goodness, under his tutelage. A lover for Jen Yu is also thrown in for good measure. A dacoit, who robs Jen yu’s comb(?) and her heart in the desert. He makes a lovers promise to make something of himself before he stakes claim to Jen Yu’s hand. And so the film meanders on painfully to a tragic albeit (to the viewer) thankful end.
The stunt scenes were supposed to be of the highest quality. The stunt scenes actually left me dumbstruck. Don’t misunderstand me, I was not dumbstruck with awe, but due to the entire stupidity at the way the stunts were conceptualised. People Fly. I can understand a superhero fly. But the Characters in the movie are not superheroes. They are human Beings, warriors of another time. But man never had wings and no martial art form can teach man to fly. Critics of this line of thought advocate ’ Suspension of Disbelief’ while watching this movie. But then how do I suspend disbelief, when I see Jen Yu, at the end of the movie, setting out on horseback to get an antidote for a Li Mu Bai, who is hit by a poisoned dart. Now why she couldn’t fly and get the antidote, is an answer only Ang Lee can give.
So much has been written about the beautiful(?) story. A story so highly praised across the world. The movie was nominated for ten Oscar including Best Picture and won four Oscars including Best Foreign film. The movie has a plot, no different than a Hindi masala pot-boiler. People flying, jumping two storeys, revenge, love in the middle of nowhere, among social unequals, a tearful ending..Everything that makes a roaring Hindi Pot-boiler is there for good measure in this flick. Hollywood, rarely exposed to this type of cinema, lapped it up and is now asking for more. India, fed on potboilers, expectedly rejected the movie.
The good thing about the movie is undoubtedly the choreography and the background music score. The two weave together so beautifully, that one tends to forget the events on screen and concentrate on the background and enjoy the music. Even the grass in the meadows and the trees in the background seem to move in tune. It is tough to comment on the acting, as the version of the movie I watched was dubbed in English. Dubbing takes a lot away for the actual performance. Jen Yu looks beautiful. She has a sensuousness about her, which fills up the screen with the freshness of a flower garden on as early spring morning.
The director had so many plots to play around with, that he was probably confused as to where he started, what he had to do and how he should finish. The movie would have probably done well as a television series. Two hours is too little time to do justice to so many plots. He tries a tightrope walk, jams in as much of the story as he can, doesn’t do justice to a single character and ends up with a movie which feels like a dream, aimless wanderings among nothing and around nowhere.