Katie Button's search for female film heroes continues with two ladies who can teach us a thing or two about grace under fire.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of those rare, cinematic gems that seems to be a one-stop shop for entertainment, providing everything from luscious landscapes, to intimate characterisation from high-octane action to tender romance. Central to the film are actresses Michelle Yeoh (previously most famous with Western audiences for her role in James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies) and Ziyi Zhang (then credited as Zhang Ziyi.) As martial arts warrior Yu Shu Lien, Yeoh becomes a source of interest for the frustrated Jen Yu (Zhang), an aristocrat’s daughter with an impending arranged marriage.
As Jen Yu comes to rebel against the frustrating impositions on her life, she looks for a way out and indulges a secret affair with desert bandit Lo ‘Dark Cloud’. She clashes with Yu Shi Lien’s companion Master Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat) and through her relationship with thief Jade Fox becomes an adversary for Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien. This ensuing conflict enables the two women to demonstrate an incredible balance of strength and grace. Even during the most technical and strenuous of fight sequences, their femininity and beauty is preserved and best of all, never compromised. Martial arts films might usually be the fare of boys, but with CTHD, women suddenly felt involved with inspirational role models capable of everything the men could do.
Jen Yu is at a crucial junction in her life and must decide between life as an outlaw with lover Lo or societal acceptance in an arranged marriage. She is headstrong, independent and passionate and is encouraged by Yu Shu Lien to always remain true to herself in whatever she does. Sadly, Yu Shu Lien learns in the most heart-breaking fashion the agony caused by a failure to express one’s emotions. Having kept her long-standing love for Li Mu Bai repressed, hidden and unspoken for so many years, it is only as the powerful fighter lies dying in her arms that their love finds its voice.
The juxtaposition between the characters occurs on many levels: hot-headed youthfulness versus learned serenity. Self-motivation versus true altruism and acted-on lust versus reined-in love. The women seem so different and yet as well-matched fighters they share so much.
The two characters illustrate the theme of freedom and though their paths through life are far from smooth and easy, they embody a poise, confidence and inner strength to be admired. Their monumental clash (see clip below) is a particular high point and provides the unusual and most welcome sight of two women, plausibly, non-gratuitously and impressively fighting one another.
Michelle Yeoh might have sparked criticisms with her Malaysian accent, but the actress tore her cruciate ligament during a fight sequence and her commitment to a film has never been more evident. The film saw Ziyi Zhang’s star rise and went on to score Oscars as well as becoming the first foreign language film to earn over $100 million in the United States. The film helped secure western distribution and audiences for other Asian films such as Hero, Memoirs of a Geisha and House of Flying Daggers (each starring Zhang) and provided much needed representations of Asian women in cinema.
Katie Button writes for TV Scoop, Liverpool Pies and Star Trip. She has never had a fight in a tree but is still hopeful. One lucky day.
I've been a fan of Hong Kong and other mainland Chinese cinema for years, especially of the movies made by Michelle Yeoh. I especially like Heroic Trio.
However, my love makes me sad. In order to see American movies that offer roles to women as powerful as some of the movies I've seen from China, I have to watch movies from the 1930s. It's at the point where I hardly watch modern American film anymore- I want to see strong characters, especially female ones. My boyfriend is beginning to feel the same way, now that I've shown him movies like 'The Women' and 'The Letter'. I wish women could be depicted as strong and capable in American film without being given a past history of victimization, or becomng 'strong' in the movie in response to having been kidnapped/raped/stalked/beaten. It's one of the reasons I like silence of the Lambs so much- while the lead character was traumatized when young, she came from a loving home and wants to fight to protect the weak. She's not a victim. Nor does she need a male lover to prop her up.