Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
With no hype, fuss or fan fare, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon on the new decade and reinvented martial arts and the every bodies views of Asian cinema.
Starring Chinese domestic super-star Chow Yun-Fat and ex-bond girl Michelle Yeoh, Crouching Tiger sees these two as mighty warriors in the pursuit of a mystical stolen jade sword in ancient China.
Along the way they must not only confront warriors able to walk across water and float among the trees but an unspoken love that’s grown for years.
Directed by Ang Lee, the Taiwanese maestro behind Sense and Sensibility and would later go on direct Hulk and Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger is perhaps still thought of as the biggest land mark in martial arts since Bruce Lee.
The acrobatic action mixed aggression and art that had never been seen before, and perfected what many call ‘wire-fu’ with death defying sequences as beautiful as they were spectacular.
Nominated for ten Oscars, winning four, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon became the watermark for what any films from the East are still being judged on nearly a decade later.
Female First Cameron Smith