Ang Lee's “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and Fruit Chan's “Little Cheung”: Two Chinese Highlights at the 2001 International Rotterdam Film Festival

China Information

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 166-193

  Chong, Woei Lien ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84992812842     PISSN: 0920203X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0920203X0101500105     Document Type: Article

References (18)

1. Watts and Daughters of the Sun were made with support from the Hubert Bals Fund.
2. One of today's most prominent Chinese martial arts choreographers and directors, Yuen Woo-p'ing, who helped Jackie Chan and Jet Li rise to fame and is known in the West for his breathtaking work for The Matrix, was also responsible for directing the wire acrobatics in Crouching Tiger.
3. She is mistakenly called “Jen” in the English subtitles. This is an unfortunate mistake since the second character of the girl's name, “Long,” means “Dragon,” referring to her spiritual destiny to become a dragon soaring toward heights unattainable by normal human beings.
4. As noted by Stephen Teo, Ang Lee's film is, among other things, a tribute to King Hu (Hu Jinquan, 1931-1997), the renowned martial arts director. The spectacular bamboo grove scene and tavern scene in Crouching Tiger follow a pattern made famous by King Hu (Teo, 7). Moreover, Zheng Peipei, who plays Fox, is a well-known King Hu martial arts star.
5. Interview with Guardian Unlimited, “Ang Lee and James Schamus,” 7 November 2000: part 1, p. 2; idem part 3, p. 4. Downloaded on 15 November 2000. The theme of the secret and the forbidden is also reflected in the film's title. For a comment from Ang Lee on this, see Wong, p. 35; for my interpretation see pp. 184-185 below.
6. On this color symbolism, see the Guardian Unlimited interview with Ang Lee and James Schamus, part 3, p. 4.
7. These scenes are emotionally the most intense of the entire movie, superbly acted by Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-fat.
8. Berardinelli, 2. Berardinelli is one of the few critics who has paid more than passing attention to the crucial figure of Holt. He is central to the interpretation of the film as a Buddhist parable (see below).
9. If one regards Jiaolong as the main protagonist in Crouching Tiger, then Mubai can be viewed as the personification of her soul. If, alternatively, Mubai is regarded as the film's main protagonist, then Jiaolong may be viewed as the personification of his soul. The scheme works both ways. The aim of this genre, of course, is ultimately to confront the viewer/reader with the dimensions and possibilities of his/her own soul.
10. For a short and cryptic comment by Ang Lee on the symbols of tiger and dragon, see Wong, p. 35.
11. As pointed out by Teo, p. 3.
12. See ter Haar, forthcoming. On Granny Tiger, see Nai-tung Ting, 1978.
13. This film is also set in ancient China. For an analysis by Woei Lien Chong, see Chong and Keijser 1993/94, 57-58. Contemporary Chinese cinema does not restrict itself to the making of Buddhist parables on the epic scale of these three films. See, for example, the 40-minute mini-parable Too Young, by the Taiwanese director Huang Min-chen, analyzed in Chong and Keijser 1999, 102-106.
14. See Chong and Keijser 1998, 107-109, and Chong 2000, 215-16, respectively.
15. Thanks are due to Anne-Sytske Keijser for pointing out this third difference with Chan's previous films.
16. For an outstanding example of this technique, see Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God, analyzed in Chong 1995, 83-91.
17. The motif of a son who is transformed by loss and bereavement into a courageous youth who dares to defy his cruel father is also very prominent in Chang Tso-chi's Ah- Chung. There is no doubt that this motif refers to the far-reaching political changes in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1990s. On the political implications Aofh Chung, see Chong 1997, 108-109.
18. Zhang Zeming's masterly film Swansong also identifies Cantonese music as the embodiment of the southern soul.