preview

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: Ang Lee

Better Essays
Open Document
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon – Ang Lee
Ang Lee is a film director, screenwriter, and producer from Taiwan, born on October 23, 1954. One of the major themes in his films is relationships/conflicts between tradition and modernity as well as repressed emotions. He graduated from the National Taiwan University of Arts in 1975, moving on to the path of performance art by earning his B.F.A. in Theater Direction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Later on he earned his M.F.A. in film production from NYU. In 1991, he created his first feature film Pushing Hands and in 1993, he made The Wedding Banquet, which became a hit. Eat Drink Man Woman became Ang Lee’s third feature film in 1994 and at the time was one of the most successful…show more content…
The film begins in the Qing Dynasty with Li Mu Bai, a successful Wudang swordsman and Yu Shu Lien, a strong female warrior discussing their suppressed feelings for one another complicated by the death of his best friend who she was with. Mu Bai tells her to deliver his sword The Green Destiny, to their friend Sir Te as wants to leave his past/ warrior ways behind him after his master was killed by a woman named Jade Fox. Sir Te accepts the gift and sets it in a case, later she meets Jen, the daughter of a Manchurian governor who is sent for an arranged marriage. That night a thief steals the Green Destiny, Shu Lien follows the thief and finds that the thief demonstrates a high skill in Wudang technique, which leads them to engage in combat until the thief manages to escape. The next day Mu Bai visits and Shu Lien tells him about what happened and that Jade Fox has returned. One evening, Bo, Sir Te’s servant and an undercover policeman and his daughter meet Jade Fox in a battle where the policeman is killed and Mu Bai fights with the thief, becoming impressed with her skills. It is then revealed that Jen is the thief and Jade Fox is her governess, she realizes Jen has surpassed her skill by secretly studying the Wudang manual. Another night, a desert bandit named Lo sneaks into Jen’s bedroom asking her to run away with him, which leads to a…show more content…
When Mu Bai was introduced, the most prevalent thing that the audience learns about him is that he has hidden feelings for Shu Lien when he tells her that he when he was meditating he came to a place where time and space disappeared that Shu Lien assumed was enlightment but ghe says "I didn’t feel the bliss of enlightenment. Instead, I was surrounded with an endless sorrow… I felt something pulling me back… something I couldn’t leave behind.". This is when she realizes that the “something” is his attachment to Shu Lien, but it is contrary to the Wudan way of detachment, which led him to end his deep meditation regimen. In another major encounter with Shu Lien, Mu Bai touches her hand and says "Your hand… rough and calloused from practice… All this time I’ve never had the courage to touch it…" further showing the audience how much he has held himself back from showing her how much he loves him. Shu Lien also expressed her love for him to Jen when she tells her about the relations they both have but do not engage in out of respect for his best friend. In the last scene for them, both Mu Bai and Shu Lien show their emotions to each other when death is near for Mu Bai. Shu Lien tells him to meditate as he has been taught, she says: "Free yourself of this world, as you have been taught. Let your soul rise to eternity with your last breath. Do not waste it on me." But Mu Bai answers, "I
Get Access
Related
Get Access