Whirlwind Kick

Not much happens in the first 20 minutes or so of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Li Mu Bai, a martial arts master played regally by Chow Yun-Fat, wants to retire from the fighting life. Before heading out to the proverbial mountain, he hands his broadsword, called "the Green Destiny," over to Michelle Yeoh's Yu Shu Lien. We can tell they kind of like each other, but this is ancient China, and in this movie, as in most others set in the past, love cannot speak its name for at least a couple of reels. So Shu Lien takes the Green Destiny, as per Li's instructions, to a friend of Li's family and chats it up a bit with Jen (Zhang Ziyi), a teenage noble who indicates she'd really like to ditch her arranged marriage and kick some warrior ass.

Isn't this supposed to be a fight movie? Patience. Soon enough somebody steals the Green Destiny, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon takes flight, so very literally. Darkness finally falls, and a black-clad bandit swoops in and lifts the sword but doesn't get away by not being pursued. Shu Lien gives extraordinary chase, and as the scene progresses as the fighters jump up walls and sail across rooftops, zealously nipping after each other like two over amorous flying squirrels, even the sleepiest of spectators will lean forward and wipe the yellow morning crust out their tear ducts once and for all. The 20-minute wait was worth it. Solely on the power of the flying fight scenes, Crouching Tiger is one of the few must-see movies of the year.

See, the characters really do float and fly, kind of like the characters in The Matrix did, only with a lot more poetry. Director Ang Lee, landing on his feet after last year's disappointing Ride With the Devil, pulls off an unprecedented double feat here: his action sequences are both thrilling to see and beautiful to behold. The last 45 minutes in particular are astonishing, both visually and kinesthetically. As the plot progresses, that black-clad bandit is unmasked as Jen, the young malcontent who's secretly teamed up with the evil (and female women do all the heavy lifting in this movie) Jade Fox, played by Cheng Pei Pei. Never in movies has there been a rebellious teen as adept at defending as Jen, and consequently Zhang gets to be in all the best scenes. In the final haul toward the end credits, she takes down a tavern of burly men, she mixes mitts with Shu Lien in a dojo fight, and (in the single most stunning sequence of the year) she fends off Li at the end of a tree branch, high above in a floating fight out in the forest. Hey, it's just a lot of scuffles, but they're exciting, and you'll never be able to get the imagery out of your head. Ever again.

As for all the rest that surrounds the fighting, it can't compare, but it is all built around a nifty little irony. Li, Shu Lien, and Jen can all travel by air and knock out entire battalions one-handed- they can float like butterflies and sting like bees- but on emotional ground their poise is not so steady. Li and Shu Lien are in love, but because she was once betrothed to his brother they can't do anything about it; Jen wants to be a warrior, and she loves a bandit she's not supposed to. None of this really connects in the ambling first half-hour, but once the fisticuffs take off it actually makes the film more resonant, because the more magnificently the characters fight, the more poignantly their emotional foibles register. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon makes humans of its superhumans, and it spins beauty out of brawling.