Crouching Beauty, Hidden Meaning

First things first: When you board an elevator that smells funny—even a little—get off and take the next one. Someone always gets on and thinks it's you that wears too much perfume, or had a burrito for lunch, or smokes Salem. Trust me on this one.

I watched the epic "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" again. I do this sort of thing, where I go genre on the innocent clerks at the neighborhood flick-torium. Last time was the whole Batman franchise in order, the week before the Heath Ledger version was released.



(In case you're wondering, I liked the George Clooney one best. It was closest to the TV series and I liked its light heartedness. Everyone disagrees, so don't think you're special.)

I got to thinking about the (somewhat) recent spate of movies in homage to martial arts legend and fantasy—"Crouching Tiger," "Iron Monkey," "Hero," "Fearless," "House of Flying Daggers," "Bulletproof Monk." "Crouching Tiger" is an Ang Lee film and has his artful, soft touch. But all that film critic stuff aside, what I liked best about the movie—besides the wondrous fight scenes—was one interesting difference.

Martial arts movies are geared to 12-year old boys who are ready to burst out of their boy bodies and do some serious damage to those ninth-graders who keep messing with them after school. The plots are about a just man being pinned in a situation where he has no choice but to fight. He does, he wipes out the evil crime boss / local warlord and reminds us that one just man with moves so quick you see through them like helicopter blades, is the last, best hope for our lame species.

But "Crouching Tiger" is centrally about women. While the plot largely sticks with that I detailed above, it is women who are provoked, women who are god and bad (and good-and-bad). It is women who react to external forces and who are the only hope for, um, mankind.

Women inhabit the chief spaces in "Crouching Tiger." Yu Shu-lien is the stealthy, intelligent practitioner of Wudang, the kung fu a small group of heroes uses to legendary effect. She sits quietly sewing, until she springs to use her art to re-direct events, not just to clash steel. Jade Fox hoped to study Wudang; frustrated by her failure, she proceeded down the path of murder, evil magic and vengeance. Her lethal skill impelled hunters to track her and meet her in combat—always to their detriment.



But it is Jen who has the most dynamic presence. She leads a triple life—yes, you read it right—that moves events from intrigue to crime to justice to emotion to reason. Jen is compelled by love, anger, ambition and duty, seperate and all at once. She is both male and female. Every man but one falls easily before her prowess, and all women are unable to corral her. She is the only one who can determine her fate, and the fate of every other character. Jen is about 15 years old, for what it's worth.

Men, meanwhile, are generally one-dimensional in "Crouching Tiger." Li Mu-bai is the greatest warrior, but he is secondary to Yu Shu-lien in events. It is she who combats Jen in the film's best fight scene; Li Mu-bai only spars with Jen to woo her to Wudang and a righteous path. In the end, Li Mu-bai's myopia is his downfall, while Yu Shu-lien and Jen are deepened by the movie's climactic moment.

All in all, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is one of those films we are the better for seeing. It's artful, dramatic and the kung fu is really good. There is a slight qualification to that: Lee directs the action sequences fantasy-like, with flying and running up walls and such. But it's not hokey, fortunately. It's fantasy, and good tales are "Once upon a time..." with a solid foundation of real humanity.

Fantasy, like myth and fable and other imaginitive invention, takes us into a dream so we can better understand our reality. Or maybe, it takes our sordid realities and casts them dreamlike, that we can better manage our world. Whatever your personal emphasis, it's about that core human challenge of trying to guide our senses with our minds.