Crouching Tiger

[Rochelle Wong]

As a host for
>the Today Show put it: "And all these people are flying around. What's
>with that?" Anybody who has seen HK martial arts fantasies knows it's
>a manifestation of the highest level skills. CDHD assumes you know
>that. To someone coming in off the street, it's bound to seem funny or
>strange...and I think the script's handling of the subject may be to
>blame. (If some of early flying fu were preceded by the charaters
>doing preliminary postures, the audience would have understood
>immediately.)

I agree with this. I even heard people behind me saying, "oh they climb 
walls, fly, and now walk on water". If we had seen these experts in training 
then such skills would have at least downplayed audience disbelief. Compared 
to 'The Matrix' - the "super-human" power is attibuted to technology. 
Similarly, we know why Superman has the ability to fly. However, the 
philosophical concepts are left untouched in CTHD.

Despite this and its Hollywood-ization, I enjoyed the film as much as I did 
the audience reception. I found myself scanning the audience before the film 
began and keenly observing their responses to particular scenes.

As Lori noted, I found the dual split in audience to be true. I saw CTHD at 
a small cinema chain which supposedly targets 'art-house' films. Never in my 
life had I seen so many young people (age 15-18) at a foreign film viewing 
that accounted for a significant presence percentage-wise. It is my 
assumption, their laughter derived from the Hong Kong 'martial arts genre' 
(cleaver in head) whilst the older art-house crowd laughed in disbelief 
(flying).

As I understand it, CTHD is now the top box-office income earner for a 
foreign language film in the US. Some weeks ago, Australian reports stated 
that it was well on the path to the same success.

Hopefully, the popularity of the film should open doors for Chinese/Asian 
cinema with audiences subscribing to different facets and/or genres of its 
cinema.

Regards,
Rochelle











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