Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger film featured some of Asia’s finest actors including Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, and Ziyi Zhang. The two hour epic took home four Oscars and has won another seventy-three awards according to IMDB. Most people are familiar with the film, but if you haven’t seen it, the premise is that there is a priceless sword that a retiring master, Li Mu Bai, is transporting across China to give to an acquaintance. The sword is stolen one night and Jade Fox, a renowned thief, is suspected. Li Mu Bai and Michelle Yeoh’s character (Yu Shu Lien) track the sword and discover that Jen Yu, (Zhang), a princess who is bored with her pampered life, is behind the theft. With Li Mu Bai’s steadfast patience and faith, he’s able to wean Jen into a more positive direction, away from the negative influences of Jade Fox. A romance develops between Li and Jen as well.
Crouching Tiger is packed with drama, action, and romance, and it’s all weaved together against a beautiful China. It’s a very captivating film, and about the only negative comment I could have about the movie is that it’s powerful and dramatic enough that you might only watch it a couple of times a year, if that.
The image and sound quality of this HD transfer are quite good. Colors are vibrant and clearly defined and I didn’t see any grain or other technical woes throughout the film. Much like the other two Sony Pictures films included in this set, it’s a gorgeous release and I’m sure a lot of time was spent to make it look and sound this excellent. The sound options include the original Chinese language as well as dubbed English and French, all in Dolby 5.1 surround. Subtitles include English, English SDH, and French.
The extra features included are in SD and are from previous releases of the movie. These include a commentary track with Director Ang Lee and James Schamus. A thirteen minute feature with Michelle Yeoh reminiscing about the film and its production is also included. I especially liked that she talked constantly through this feature and that it wasn’t padded with a bunch of scenes from the movie. There is also a making of documentary that runs about twenty minutes entitled “Unleashing the Dragon: The Making of…” Within this you will see lots of production footage and interviews of the cast and crew (although no Ziyi Zhang) during the time of filming. Lastly, there is also a Photo Gallery with several still images.
House of Flying Daggers
It’s difficult to really summarize this film briefly and descriptively. The story takes place in the year 859 A.D., during the waning days of the Tang Dynasty in China. A secretive organization known as the House of Flying Daggers are seen as rebels in the eyes of the Dynasty as they oppose the current, obviously corrupt government. Mei, played by the beautiful Ziyi Zhang, is a blind dancer that is a member of the House. A Tang Dynasty deputy, known as Jin, attempts to infiltrate the secret House of Daggers but finds himself undeniably attracted to Mei. Jin is torn between killing her and falling in love with her, but things get even more convoluted and involved when he finds out that he isn’t the only one after Mei’s heart. What results is a movie with lots of dramatic and romantic scenes as well quite a bit of great martial arts action.
The House of Flying Daggers has what I would call a very complicated plot, or at least one that you really have to pay attention to get the first time. There’s a lot of drama and romance in the film, much more so than action. It will remind you a lot of Hero, but Hero, in my opinion, is a superior film because it is more action oriented (amongst other things). That’s not to say House doesn’t have some incredible action sequences in it. There are some very beautiful and spectacular fight scenes, like that which takes place in the bamboo forest.
The similarities to Hero are fairly obvious in terms of both direction and story, even the ending is as sad or even as tragic. At 133 minutes, it’s fairly long, and if you don’t pay attention to the story, you’ll become lost and uninterested well before the end, so watch for that. Overall the film is really quite captivating from the beginning and very thoughtfully put together throughout.
This film looked great on DVD; on Blu-ray, it’s even better. Full 1080p support in widescreen, it’s a superb picture and a really good one to show off to your friends. The movie itself is just down right gorgeous with all kinds of fantastic environments, colors, and costumes.
The disc also contains the original Chinese audio track in uncompressed PCM 5.1 surround. You can also enable 5.1 dubbed tracks in English, French, and Spanish, but I prefer subtitles. I wouldn’t say the movie sounds quite as good as it looks, but it’s an excellent, high quality audio presentation.
There aren’t a lot of extras, unfortunately. In fact, the Blu-ray release has far fewer features than did the DVD release, which is kind of frustrating. There is a brief, maybe five minute long feature called “Creating the Visual Effects” which is okay, but far too short to really go anywhere. There’s no reason to watch that more than once. The other feature is just a few storyboard comparisons which are also short and not very interesting. For a Blu-ray release, you would hope that at least all of the original features from the DVD release would carry over, but this isn’t the case.
Curse of the Golden Flower
Curse of the Golden Flower is set during the Tang Dynasty of China, when the emperor, played by the incomparable Chow Yun-Fat, was the ultimate ruler. Curse tells the story of the emperor, his wife played by Gong Li, and their three children. It’s hard to be very detailed about the story without giving away too much, but I don’t know that I have ever seen a film with such deep-rooted betrayal and vengeance between characters. This climaxes very suddenly on the night of the Chrysanthemum festival; chrysanthemums being, of course, the golden flowers. The entire story is a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions and beyond.
The story is more than enough to get you hooked into the film from start to finish, but the gorgeous visuals and authentic dialogue are helpful to that end as well. Costume and set design is astounding and extravagant. The emperor’s golden armor was my favorite; Chow Yun-Fat mentions in the ‘making of’ feature that it weighed about sixty pounds, which is why you won’t see him move a lot in that armor. Gong Li’s costumes are very finely detailed and most, if not all of the costumes were hand made, too. The effort that went into the set design and costumes is apparent and one of the most remarkable parts about the movie.
As far as presentation, Curse doesn’t disappoint. Expect lots of beautiful scenery in a very rich and vibrant 1080p picture, complimented by 5.1 Surround in either Chinese or English languages.
The extras on this release are few in number, but they aren’t too bad. Totaling about twenty-five minutes, there is a LA Premiere extra, which shows some of the film’s stars and the director at the LA premiere and they are interviewed briefly for their thoughts. Then there is a nice ‘making of’ feature that includes interviews with the main players in the cast and director Zhang Yimou.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that this is an excellent box set containing three truly amazing films. Additionally, the presentation quality of each film is superb on Blu-ray, although the extra features are a bit disappointing. While those of us who already have Curse and House will be frustrated in not being able to get Crouching as a standalone BD, the majority of people who don’t have any of these films can revel in a great price point for this set.