Hey folks, Harry here. My excitement level for Ang Lee's CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON has officially reached fever pitch. Why you ask?
Mere minutes after the CANNES screening of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON unfurled upon the screens of CANNES, our AICN Cannes Operative, Froggy, sent in This Report, from that screening. His review was an absolute 30 minute pig orgasm. You could feel him trembling as he wrote it. The pure adrenal thrill of having seen a film that he had, in no manner, expected to hit him the way this film did. It left him a drooling pile of primordial fanboy ooze.
This was immediately followed up by various Cannes Ejaculatory reviews... again by AICN operatives... again, folks that I have not met or had a serious film going conversation with.
While the praise for Ang Lee's Martial Arts Epic has been universal, not actually knowing anyone that had seen it... well it tempered my enthusiasm.
Until now. I was sent this link to a story that Richard Corliss has filed with TIME that... well, it's ejaculatory and... well he liked it tons too.
Now why would I give a shit about what Richard Corliss thinks of a film? Especially a hardcore kung fu period epic? I mean... usually aren't the mainstream critics the last humans on the planet that you would want to listen to or pre-judge the quality of 'this' type of film?
Agreed. And had I not had the pleasure of meeting and talking at great lengths with Richard on the FLOATING FILM FESTIVAL's boat and various excursions... like the one that he, his wife, Raymond "TWO FAMILY HOUSE director" DeFellita, The Dude and I took in Nicaragua together... well... during all this... I came to know Richard Corliss' inner geek.
Richard Corliss is an absolute uber-geek about the world of Asian Cinema. His enthusiasm is unfettered. We talked continually about Martial Arts films from the Shaw Brothers, to the violent cinema of Seijun Suzuki, to the world of Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh... etc. We talked about the emerging Hong Kong and Asian directors like Andrew Lau and Kaos... and the problems involved with Hollywood draining the talent pools over there and putting these talented directors into the Hollywood Machine System of Action Film Directing. In short... I saw this man exhibit not only knowledge far surpassing my own, but enthusiasm and joy over the genre that... I have only seen here in Austin immediately following screenings of Asian Cinema at the old HOGG AUDITORIUM at UT and now at the ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE on the first Sunday of each month.
So when I saw his by-line at the top of the article... I knew exactly who was talking to me in the piece. And I was fairly calm until I read this paragraph in his wonderful piece:
Now that Crouching Tiger is opening in Asia, after stoking enthrallment at this May's Cannes Festival, viewers can see that all the agony produced exactly what Lee hoped to create: a blending, not a collision, of Eastern physical grace and Western intensity of performance, of Hong Kong kung-fu directness and British attention to behavioral nuance. Chinese stars convene from three movie eras: pioneer kung-femme Cheng Peipei from the '60s, Chow and Yeoh from Hong Kong's glorious '80s, and bright new lights Zhang and Chang. The fight scenes evoke grand old movies with computer technology. It's contemplative, and it kicks ass. High art meets high spirits on the trampoline of the movie's plot. Lee initially described the film to Yeoh as "Sense and Sensibility with martial arts." But it's not a hybrid; it's a new, exotic strain. Put it this way: a powerful film, a terrific movie.
