Crouching Tiger/Kung Fu Hustle box set
The newly released double box set of Ang Lee’s enigmatic epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Stephen Chow’s slapstick farce Kung Fu Hustle (2004) couldn’t offer two more different perspectives on the Wuxia genre of filmmaking.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a great deal more than a mere kung fu film. This sweeping, majestic fable is a near masterpiece, combining beautiful cinematography, fight scenes that will take your breath away and a two touching love stories with very different outcomes.
Based on the fourth part of a 1930s pentalogy by novelist Wang Du Lu with a script by James Schamus, Crouching Tiger is concerned with the theft of a holy sword, the Green Destiny, which belongs to the legendary warrior Li Mubai (Chow Yun-Fat). Looking for a quieter life, Mubai entrusts his sword to the gifted martial artist Yu Shulien (Michelle Yeoh), with whom he shares an unspoken love. Yu takes the sword to Beijing, where she meets Jen (Zhang Ziyi), the teenage daughter of a political bigwig, whose nurse bears a striking resemblance to the murderous witch Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-Pei). But when the sword is stolen, everyone leaps into action in a frantic search to retrieve it.
Crouching Tiger is by far the most successful kung fu film to have hit mainstream cinemas in the West and it’s easy to see why. The film’s first fighting scene between Shulien and the thief, choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping, who won international acclaim for his work on The Matrix, sets the tone and pace for the rest of the film. The two warriors leap over roofs and run up walls as if they were dealing with hurdles on an athletics track. After several minutes of exhilarating hand-to-hand combat, the thief suddenly soars into the sky, with Shulien in urgent pursuit. Accompanying such scenes are the poignant, soaring strains of cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
This version of the DVD also contains cast and crew interviews. Ang Lee’s is pithy, but offers little real insight into the film’s production. Michelle Yeoh, however, is well worth watching. She cuts to the chase when it comes to what the film meant to her, and the difficulties she encountered working with actors from several parts of the Chinese speaking world.
Kung Fu Hustle
Kung Fu Hustle is a 2004 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film co-written, co-produced, directed by and starring Stephen Chow. Following the life of a petty criminal who wants to make it big in 1930s Shanghai, the film both parodies and pays homage to the grandiose and elated Wuxia style exhibited in films such as Crouching Tiger and House of Flying Daggers.
If you’ve already seen Chow’s previous film, the fabulouslydaft Shaolin Soccer, you’ll know what to expect - martial arts mayhem in the style of Bugs Bunny. No gag is too vulgar, no special effect too extreme. The characters constantly defy the laws of gravity, spinning round and round and kicking ten enemies to the ground before landing in a poised squat. Teeth fly upwards, criminals chase each other with Roadrunner like speed. A running joke is that the middle-aged landlady and her husband are better fighters than the professionals.
Subtle it ain’t but if you enjoy insane slapstick, crafty fighting aided by magic and a good plot then Kung Fu Hustle is well worth watching.
