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"Crouching Tiger Hidden Dwagon Awsome Or Awful"

I watched Crouching tiger hidden dragon as loads of people had said it was great especially the fight scenes. I watched it and was realy disappointed, what would have been a brilliant fight scene was completely undermimed by.... Flying. Can some one tell me what was going on. I found it hard to take this movie serious as the flying (We are not talking extended jumps but 50 metre leaps or complete reverse change of direction in mid flight where occuring.) was so ridiculous. It was so far from reality but supposed to be set in a real context that it completely ruined the story. On top of this I found te story line wasn't exactly great It was a little dodgy a best and didn't really go anywher and the ending was quite awful. It is not a film that i could easily recomend as it was a film with few merits and i suspect only gained the acclaim it did to help encourage the film industry in developing countries. I'd probably give it a 4 or 5 out of 10.

I watched Crouching tiger hidden dragon as loads of people had said it was great especially the fight scenes. I watched it and was realy disappointed, what would have been a brilliant fight scene was completely undermimed by.... Flying. Can some one tell me what was going on. I found it hard to take this movie serious as the flying (We are not talking extended jumps but 50 metre leaps or complete reverse change of direction in mid flight where occuring.) was so ridiculous. It was so far from reality but supposed to be set in a real context that it completely ruined the story. On top of this I found te story line wasn't exactly great It was a little dodgy a best and didn't really go anywher and the ending was quite awful. It is not a film that i could easily recomend as it was a film with few merits and i suspect only gained the acclaim it did to help encourage the film industry in developing countries. I'd probably give it a 4 or 5 out of 10.

Why do people have such a problem with the flying? People can go into the Matrix and come out wondering if its half-arsed, clichéd story line might be true, yet can't believe some Mystics can fly.

Voluntary suspension of disbelief. Its what lets us believe that Doc Brown can really build a time machine, or that all those stupid things listed elsewhere in this forum that regularly happen in films, happen.

I think its really rather sad. The tale is a fantasy - it isn't set in the real world at all. It is set in a mystical Eastern world with all-powerful swords and grand Empires with unbelievable opulence. Are you so cynical that you can't just accept that these people can fly? It would have belittled the audience and taken away from the film if they'd attempted to explain it as they ultimately wouldn't have convinced and just aroused our wondering. As it is, it's brilliant.

I am indeed that cynical. CTHD is set in China not a mystical alternate world. Chines cities are shown as well as the Gobi Desert. The flying looked completely out of place and was completely ridiculous. everything else was real as in how it would have been at the time but it had select people in the film who had this ability not a whole flying nation. If you want to make such a clearly warped piece of direction in a film you have to have it clearly represented in an alternate world or give a reason or at least keep it with in the bounds of reality!

I hope it's a good movie, I claimed it as my filmaday about a week ago and it has not come yet.

Bad luck

I'm fussy about the type of films that I would class as "good" but I thought this is a very entertaining film.

I agree with Doc Gonzo here, I feel the flying aspect gave it that more fantastical edge and made it more unique to me. It gave the fights a very majestic feel, to see that these fighters were special people, and that made the fairy tale story even more complete I think.

Isn't it an eastern trademark to have that sort of flying around, or is that something I just conjured up one night?

OK i can take some extra long jumps but that girl changed direction fully and flew around the people in the bar.

I think the idea is that, as "mr neil" said, the idea is to give it a fantasy fell. I think it's something to do with all the old traditional chinese myths and stuff with people flying, I'm not sure. Or on the other hand, it could just be that the director is the same guy that made the "Bionic Man/Women/Showdown" films and decided to put the same special effects in just for the hell of it. But whyever it's there, it's still pretty good special effects.

It’s not so much flying, more jumping with grace. The comparison with the Matrix is a valid and interesting one; The similarities between the plot in the Matrix and Buddhism/Taoism are pretty apparent, the fabled warriors from eastern culture obtained seemingly impossible feats through the realisation that the material world is illusion. Sound familiar?

CTHD is Eastern mythology, the wire work that enables the actors to ‘fly’ has been used in countless films that have never seen the screen in western society, just as tales about Robin Hood, the Three Musketeers, or King Arthur are not too likely to make the rounds in the Hong Kong cinema scene.

They are topics well covered by our Western film making fraternity though, stories that put forward great ideals irrespective of the myths that spawned them. King Arthur, who pulled a sword from a lump of stone that no other person could budge, as God had intended. And he lived in a world of magic. Hardly realistic, yet considerable research has gone into the life of King Arthur and his Camelot.

Look at the Three Musketeers or Robin Hood, maybe they weren’t flying around as much, but principles such as honour, loyalty, dignity were all woven into the story told, whether they existed or not is neither here nor there. If Robin Hood split the Sheriff of Nottingham’s arrow with his own is questionable, but it is ingrained in our folklore nonetheless. Just as stories such as CTHD are a part of Chinese folklore

The point is, CTHD is not supposed to be realistic. It’s supposed to portray characters from Chinese folklore who were capable of such feats. It doesn’t require a huge leap in understanding to realise that.