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Review

With one master stroke, director Lee has simultaneously made the art film accessible, the martial arts film artful, and combined several genres to create one of the most poetic, exciting and awe-inspiring films in recent memory. A stunning achievement of immeasurable beauty, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon finds director Lee -- who helmed such great English-language films as Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm -- back home in his native Taiwan to tell the thrilling story of master warriors, gravity-defying fights and the ultimate battle for the legendary Green Destiny sword. Yun-Fat is Li Mu Bai, the land's most celebrated soldier, who returns to his village to leave behind the ways of the samurai. Fate, however, has other plans as Li comes face to face with his fiercest of enemies, the Jade Fox (Pei). Caught in the middle is Jen (an extraordinary Ziyi), the daughter of the local governor who is promised in an arranged marriage. Destinies and passions soon collide in a beautiful, swirling mixture of acrobatics and romantic sweep. The fight scenes, choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping (The Matrix), are simply astonishing; bordering on the fantastic but possessing such grace as to never appear absurd. The story, based on the novel by Wang Du Lu, stands on its own as a study of tradition and defiance; with the Hong Kong-style fight scenes, it's a perfect blending of action and grand drama. Winner of 4 Academy Awards, including Best Foreign-Language Film. (Mandarin with English subtitles)