Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
It’s been years since I’ve seen this movie, and my god, it’s so much better than I even remember. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved this movie. It’s a true masterpiece, but there are so many wonderful levels of incredible that I never saw (or don’t remember) before. Watching this movie as an adult is a really different experience than I ever had watching it as a teenager.
This film, weirdly enough, was a favourite amongst my siblings and me. Being the youngest of six kids, I had the great fortune of being exposed to the art my older siblings liked, and this film demonstrates that. I was probably a kid when I first watched this movie, maybe around ten or so, and at that point, it was hard enough for me to even catch all of the subtitles, so there was a lot of subtext (and probably just plain old text) that I was missing. What I did remember about this film though is that the women are truly amazing.
With the likes of Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang, you know the women are not going to roll over when told to. And this movie delivers on that. Not only are the women the central focus of this film (despite the fact that Chow Yun-Fat seems to be the top-billed character and actor for an unknown reason) they also kick serious ass. Zhang plays the young martial arts prodigy Jen, who has been indoctrinated into her master’s hatred of Wudang, where Yun-Fat’s character Li trained. Jen’s master, the Jade Fox, is a bitter woman who has been on the run since she killed Li’s master, Southern Crane (who Jen hilariously misnames several times in the film). Li has been trying to get revenge ever since, and his story in the film consists of going after her and also trying to get Jen to train under him instead.
He keeps insisting to her that, despite the fact Wudang won’t train women, they’ll make an exception for her because she is so talented. The thing about this is that it’s only further insulting to Jen. Not only does she not want to be trained by Li, but the Wudang temple refused to train her master, the Jade Fox, because she was a woman. So really, despite the fact that the Jade Fox doesn’t exactly get a happy ending in this film, there’s also a pretty valid reason for her to be so angry. Li’s master, Southern Crane, slept with her and then refused to teach her, despite the fact that she was quite talented.
Li also sends Jen’s lover, Lo, to Wudang to train and wait for Jen to come and meet him. When Jen hears about this, she is not at all happy about it. She knows that Wudang refuse to train women and she doesn’t want to be associated with it anymore than she already is (because she trained in their specific style of martial arts and is a master). This is the perfect example of how the men in this movie make decisions for the women in their lives instead of listening to them and asking them what they really want. Lo does the same, when he insists that Jen can’t marry someone else (who her dad is making her marry in the first place) because she belongs to him. Southern Crane refusing to teach the Jade Fox is the same.
Despite this recurring theme, these women continually refuse to let these men make their decisions. Yeoh’s character Yu hasn’t let her gender affect her choice of profession. Not only is she an incredible fighter, she’s a match for the Wudang trained artists, despite the fact that she couldn’t train with Wudang. She took over her father’s security business too, and all of her employees respect her and essentially do whatever she asks. She reiterates to Jen on many occasions that she should make her own choices and find her own path, and these are also the final words she leaves Jen with at the end of the film.
“Promise that whatever path you take in this life, you will always be true to yourself.” – Yu Shu Lien, English translation
In a nutshell, despite being confronted with obstacles at every turn, the women in this film are not taking anyone’s shit. A lot of the police and guards throughout the movie keep asking about how women could be criminals, or good fighters or whatever else, and the women just keep showing up to paint giant letters on their foreheads: N. O. No to being told they can’t, no to being told they shouldn’t, no to being told full stop. Look, does Jen take it a little far in the end? Sure. She doesn’t have to do everything she’s told not to do. But I also get it. She’s spent her entire life as an aristocrat being told what she can and can’t do, how she’s supposed to act, who she’ll marry. She has no semblance of choice in her life at all, and almost all of her actions in the movie can be justified by thinking about how restrictive her entire life has been up to the beginning of the film. Even her master the Jade Fox tries to tell her what to do, where to go and how to act. She’s had enough of it.
I think that’s part of why Jen and Yu get along so well and struggle to truly hate each other, even when they’re at odds and technically trying to kill each other. Jen sees in Yu the kind of person she wants to be, living the kind of life she wishes she could have, and Yu sees someone who is trapped and doesn’t know how to change her fate.
These almost-fantasy-like Chinese martial arts films were really big from about 1995 to 2007 or so, and there are a lot of them, some which went quite mainstream, including this one. The difference between this one and any of the others that I’ve seen is this absolute slam dunk in the way the women are portrayed, talked about, and given agency. There are so many other things that make this movie great, but I’m also extremely glad I decided to watch it again and write about it this month, because it’s one of those movies where you just can’t stop thinking about how truly incredible the women are.
There are so many different women in this film, with different hopes and dreams and different ways of thinking. Even the antagonistic ones are given reasons and motivation. So many of the things these women say and do in this movie are so intensely relatable. I definitely recommend watching it if you’ve never seen it, because it’s honestly a delight, especially to revisit as an adult. I’m so glad I came back to this one.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is available to stream in Australia on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Showtime in the US, and Now TV in the UK. It is also available to rent or buy everywhere on Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube and Amazon Prime.
