Good times, that's what these are for.
9. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Wuxia is one of the oldest genres on record, having been invented sometime around 300 BC according to Chinese writings. Its tales of the adventures of martial arts masters and the world they occupy have sprung forth hundreds of excellent novels and films. Among some of these masterpieces are The One-Armed Swordsman, The Avenging Eagle and The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, just to name a few. However, for every good Wuxia film there are several bad ones, and none worse than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a completely pretentious rip off of the entire genre by one of Asia's most respected directors. That Ang Lee could so shamelessly exploit the stories and culture of his own people, and that luminaries such as Chow Yun-Fat could star in this is absolutely despicable and cause to call for their execution in their homeland. Undoubtedly American audiences were captivated by this film, but the problem is that it has been done better so many times before. The fact that this movie is considered the greatest martial arts film of all time (a statement made by several notable American film critics) is absurd...it isn't even as good as your standard Bruce Lee vehicle and certainly not as strong as a film like The Prodigal Son. To top it all off, this piece of crap was dubbed (the eternal sin) and released in the US so that scenes like this, that had potential, ended up coming across hilariously bad because of the awful voice overs...
[video=youtube;J-1L3SaIzYM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-1L3SaIzYM[/video]
I would have included some of the fighting scenes to illustrate how poor they are when compared to other, better films, but I didn't want to go video clip bonkers in this post, so yeah, just believe me when I say they suck. You know what else? This movie won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and was also nominated for Best Picture. I guess if you give your movie a pretentious title and stick a bunch of well known foreign actors in it you're a safe bet for that particular award. What a joke, though I'm not laughing because I feel bad for anyone who truly believes that this is anything close to the best the Wuxia genre has to offer. This film, much like The Matrix before it, did more harm to the kung fu movie than good, and both continue to live on like cheap imitations made in a sweat shop while the true gems stay elusive, much like the goods that only the rich can afford. Do yourselves a favour and check out any of the movies I mentioned above for a real example of what this genre has to offer, and flush this turd down the toilet where it belongs.
Tomorrow, I see a predictable plot twist.