This is the first time that a Chinese film has set off a storm in the world, won multiple Oscar nominations, and won the best foreign language film award, known as the most Chinese martial arts film, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
Ang Lee, a director with a very own shooting style, looks at the awards he has won, and he is definitely a well-known director. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has the characteristics of both East and West, the open culture of the West becomes the coat, and the morality and emotion of the East are the core. So why can this film still bring us countless shocks and surprises after many years?
First, rivers and lakes do not mean complete freedom, and where there are people, there are rivers and lakes.
Wuxia movies are an enduring topic, and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" shows us a jianghu in Ang Lee's eyes. This jianghu has never been a place of freedom, wantonness, and unrestrainedness, but like the earthly world, it is bound by countless rules and regulations.
Yu Jiaolong, she is a completely free woman, she is stubborn, intelligent, and extremely talented in martial arts. Obviously, there is no shortage of appearance and family lineage, and the future must be the life of the high-gate and prestigious family, but she is bent on yearning for the rivers and lakes. She thought that everything in this world, as long as the martial arts were profound, could be easily resolved, but the rivers and lakes had the rules of the rivers and lakes, and they fought roughly, in exchange for the shackles of the rules. The jianghu has never been what Yu Jiaolong imagined, but from the lives of Li Mubai and Yu Xiulian, the repression and bondage of the jianghu are revealed everywhere.
Yu Xiulian and Li Mubai have known each other for many years, and the two have already crossed the emotional line, but no one has taken the initiative to show their intentions for each other. The ostensible reason is that Yu Xiulian already had a marriage contract, and her future husband Meng Sizhao was Li Mubai's friend for many years, and he died to save Li Mubai. Whether it is out of brotherhood or out of gratitude, Li Mubai and Yu Xiulian cannot become each other's lifelong trust.
But in fact, Confucian ethics and morality are the essential reasons that really force the two to not be together. In order to keep the festival, but also for the outside world's judgment of women, Yu Xiulian suppressed her own emotions, did not dare to be afraid, and took the first step with Li Mubai. Li Mubai, on the other hand, firmly adheres to the moral principles that he should have as a warrior, he does not want to lose everything he has, trapped in the shackles of ethics, and maintains a closeness with Yu Xiulian that has always been no more than the boundaries of friends.
The appearance of the Jade Jiaolong made Li Mubai, who had intended to give the Qing hao sword to Grandpa Belle, and from then on, he gave up his martial life and lived in seclusion with Yu Xiulian, and was once again involved in the jianghu. The affairs of the rivers and lakes are jianghu, but the rivers and lakes also have their own rules, not that you wantonly act arbitrarily and do whatever you want.
Second, the interweaving of lust and lust.
In this film, Ang Lee essentially describes to us the feelings of a love triangle, which seems a bit ridiculous, but the various details of the whole film reveal one thing for us, that is, Li Mubai, who has come down the mountain again, when he first met Yu Jiaolong, his heart was already worried.
"The purpose of my coming down, I thought you knew", this is Li Mubai's expression of Yu Xiulian. This sentence is testing and hinting at whether Yu Xiulian is willing to give up everything in the present and truly return to a peaceful life with him. If there was no appearance of YuJiaolong, perhaps Li Mubai and Yu Xiulian could really live the ideal life of the two, but all this was completely broken when Yujiaolong appeared.
Does Li Mubai's secret love for Yu Jiaolong know it himself? Naturally, he had a glimpse, but out of his love for Yu Xiulian over the years, he was not willing to admit it. Therefore, blindly asking Yu Jiaolong to worship himself, it seems that he found a disciple who inherited the martial arts and was extremely talented. But in fact, he hoped to be able to put the Jade Jiaolong by his side, perhaps not as a lover, but the master was not also a person who was extremely close to him.
Therefore, all of Li Mubai's actions are only covering up his own desires and selfishness. As for Yu Jiaolong, when she and Li Mubai looked at each other, she knew Li Mubai's desires and appeals to her.
If you say that the little tiger brings only a temporary freedom to YuJiaolong. Then Li Mubai is really the heroic image in her heart and the best candidate to choose a mate. But in the end, the difference between Yu Jiaolong and Li Mubai is not only the distance of age, but more importantly, the relationship between Yu Xiulian and Li Mubai will go.
Talking about Li Mubai and Yu Jiaolong, they already have secret feelings, so does Yu Xiulian know the feelings between the two?
Repression will only make the feelings stronger, this is Yu Xiulian's personal remarks in the film, enough to prove that she is clear, Li Mubai's feelings have shifted, she is no longer the focus of Li Mubai's life, emotional sustenance.
Therefore, the fight between Yu Xiulian and Yu Jiaolong seemed so fierce and fierce, and the killing machine was revealed. Yu Xiulian was because she was secretly jealous of Yu Jiaolong, and she knew that Li Mubai's desire had been transferred to Yu Jiaolong, but she had no solution. Yu Jiaolong, on the other hand, felt that the rivers and lakes in front of him were much different from the rivers and lakes in his imagination, and he was a little disappointed.
At the same time, she is also trapped in the love that Li Mubai should not have. Ethics and lust are vividly displayed in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and it is not so much a martial journey as it is a self-study of ethics and morality.
Third, the death of Yu Jiaolong is a kind of spiritual liberation, and there is no longer any bondage.
Jade Jiaolong, her life, the time when she really woke up, was the death of the blue-eyed fox. She really realized that the original jianghu was nothing more than that, and that the true freedom she wanted to pursue might only be obtained in the uninhabited desert. A night of love with Xiaohu is her compensation for this friendship and her final farewell.
This free woman who yearns for martial arts novels and chooses the people she loves the most is completely filled with blood and fighting spirit by reality. At the end of the movie, Yu Jiaolong chose to jump into the cliff, which seems to be a tragedy, but to some extent, for Yu Jiaolong herself, this is the best place to return.
People living on top of this world have no complete freedom, and what Yu Jiaolong pursues in his life is only an emptiness in the end. She believes that behind this vast sea of clouds is another world, where she will have real freedom, and if in the end Yu Jiaolong chooses to return to the family, or succumb to life with the little tiger, it will make the whole movie lose its original glory.