This is the best era.
This is also the worst era. All that glitters is not gold, but the cream will
rise to the top. Still, only time will tell. ‘’The flower that blooms in adversity is the
rarest and most beautiful of all.” Disney says. The late bloomer I’d like to
talk about today is the film director Ang Lee and his film ‘’Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon”.
It might be hard to find
a philosopher who also understands the market. At times, life experience, particularly
the adversity, can truly help shape one’s career, in the hidden way though. And
the same important thing might be the ability to keep the balance between sense
and sensitivity/sensibility, particularly when creating art related production.
In my eyes, ‘’Crouching
Tiger” is a ‘’spiritual action” film (I know there is no such genre). It’s so
spiritual and the hidden message is very deep as well.
So ‘’Crouching Tiger’’
is just such a deep wine with complexity, partly due to its original author
Wang Dulu….But even just watching the movie, we can still see at least two
important themes to strengthen the
complexity of total flavors: freedom and death.
Being a teenager
daughter of an aristocrat, Jen Yu certainly has everything. She even has the
courage to refuse the arranged marriage by running away from her husband on the
wedding night. Also, the accidental encounter with Lo, the desert bandit, also
ends up a true love relationship. Besides, Jen’s combative skills are superb
enough to guard herself fighting in the “Giang Hu”. But eventually, she jumps
off the mountain…
Wrapped up in the ‘’exotic
ancient martial art’’ style, the film managed to put together lots of ‘’eye
candies’’ to maximize the chances of commercial success as an entertainment
production, but in the deepest layer, this is a very serious film. If we put
this into a modern context, the story could turn out to be like this, a girl
born in a rich family (governor) with a successful career (warrior) and a
boyfriend (powerful gang leader) loved her, finally committed suicide. Jen
didn’t die because of ‘’restraint”, she actually died because of ‘’emptiness”
or that kind of ‘’adrift feeling’’, which makes this character a very
interesting figure, also makes this ‘’ancient martial art’’ film a very modern
one. It’s thought-provoking.
At times, the 99% of a
film might be just the foreshadowing of the ending, and only a few lines reveal
the hidden message. In the “Crouching Tiger” (at 48:30), Jen talked to her
master Fox:
“Master... I started
learning from you in secret when I was 10. You enchanted me with the world of
Giang Hu. But once I realized I could surpass you, I became so frightened!
Everything fell apart. I had no one to guide me, no one to learn from.”
If we do a literal
translation based on the original Chinese scripts, it might be like this:
“Master………………..I became
so frightened! I can’t see the edge of the universe, and I do not know where to
go, who to follow?”
I don’t mean to compare the
literal translation and free translation. Here I only borrow such translations
to help me illustrate this question, actually a philosophical question proposed
by Jen --- Who am I? Where do I go?
Jen expressed her fear
as a drifter. This is the fear to freedom, and the fear to victory. Being an
ace of martial art, she can even defeat her teacher, but then what? What is the
roadmap for her entire life? …Then Jen
met Lo in the desert where a new world might be opened up for her, but
obviously even a true love is neither her reason to settle down…In the mundane
world, nothing can stop Jen and nothing can save Jen…
Many Europeans might be
familiar with French philosopher Albert Camus. In his book “The Myth of
Sisyphus”, Camus says, ‘’there is only one really serious philosophical
problem, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is
to answer the fundamental question in philosophy “. In Camus’ eyes, the world
is, absurd.
Some people might have
gone through such similar stage, particularly when they were young. Or at times
they discovered themselves a bit further along this way, most of them
successfully came back to the mundane world with an “anchor” in the spiritual
realm, which might be a cause, a commitment or a goal. If this person is a
religionist, such as a Christian, he or she might understand this very well, “We
have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner
sanctuary behind the curtain” (Source: Hebrews 6:19 / Bible). We can even argue
the hope is an illusion, but that’s another story...Whatever the anchor is, it
helps the drifter’s soul settle down in the secular life.
In Jen’s case, with her
sharp eyes, she has seen through the meaninglessness of many aspects of real
life. When Li MuBai tried to convince Jen to go to Mount WuDang, she responded
with ‘’WuDang is a whorehouse! Keep your lessons!” Jen also argued with Yu Shu
Lian as she believed the so-called friendship could just be a hypocritical
thing…
This is an uninhibited,
cynical soul, but deep down, Jen is innocent, what she chases is something
‘’real’’. One thing for sure, Jen is definitely not “kitsch”. She is too pure to find herself a place in
the sophisticated and, dirty “Giang Hu”. A final leap over the mountain is probably the
ultimate way (also a logic character development) to liberate her struggling
soul.
For me, “Crouching Tiger”
is not a martial art movie. Martial Art is one of the Unique Selling Points for
box office, which was definitely terrific. It is a tragedy about a fragile
individual; such story can happen any time and any place.
The character
(personality) of a film may reflect the character of the director. For ‘’Crouching
Tiger”, being essentially a tragedy film, Ang Lee didn’t pursue a sentimental
way to convey the sense of tragedy. It’s actually unfolded with dynamic vibe
and sober tone…
Speaking of inspiration,
Ang Lee used to say, “I think that for every movie I make, I always try to
duplicate that feeling of purity and innocence that I got when I saw this movie
(Love Eternal)…” (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/09/movies/watching-movies-with-ang-lee-crouching-memory-hidden-heart.html?pagewanted=all ).
I think as the time goes by, how we look at the thing called ‘’life’’,
will inevitably influence the way how we make an entertainment production. Like wine, the complexity is developed through
aging, yet it is also hard to lock in the flavor of the bottom layer ---
innocence. And that is something less about the ‘’craft”, more about life.
*********Squeezing time to write up
this article to organize my scattered thoughts after re-watching this classic film, there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand audience’s
eyes, this one, is just through my eyes…When I have time, I’d like to write
more about Ang Lee’s film, and another “flower” ---- Hayao Miyazaki’s anime…They all inspire me!
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