DVD reviews, more than five words

[vsp]

I enjoyed the hell out of CTHD, but I can attest that to get into it, you have to:

a) push your Suspension of Disbelief button REALLY hard

(i.e. you have to get on board with the Eastern-spiritual side of martial arts, that a person can train to control their body and do otherwise humanly-impossible things. Like float and flip and stand on treetops. You have to go in knowing that this is a tale of mysticism as much as swordplay.)

b) not be a real-stunt snob

(I say this as a Jackie Chan fan, thus being partial at heart to realistic stunts. [By realistic, I mean human bodies flying in realistic ways without wires, digital manipulation or excessive editing.] Jackie's movies are generally portrayed as real-world adventures, and its stunts go along with that. Something like CTHD or the Matrix is pure fantasy, and I'm cool with that. Not that I didn't hate the Matrix, but that was for the plot, not the stunts/computer effects. The stunts were obviously enhanced, but they were taking place in a fantasy world, for all practical purposes... apples and oranges.

Romeo Must Die, on the other hand, was somewhat ruined by having a real-world story and suddenly throwing in obviously computer-generated bodies-twisting-six-times-and-throwing-five-kicks-in-one-leap stunts. IMHO, of course. It's all about context.)

c) Aw, it's Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh. Who can't love it?

As for the ending, my take on it was this: She knew that her deepest wish (to live as she pleased, presumably with her desert lover) was not possible. She had this drilled into her throughout the film, but didn't really accept it until her actions inadvertantly caused the death of the one person who legitimately wanted to help her break out of her self-serving mindset.

So now what? She knew how badly she'd emotionally wounded her "sister" (both through her actions and from the end result) and knew how close she came to having her head cut off in the end. Going back to her family and returning to the aristocratic life was not an option in her mind, and yet they'd never stop coming after her. Her lover was waiting at the monastery, but along with the family issues, she knew just how badly she'd screwed up concerning Li Mu Bai -- going to Wudan to follow his teachings might've been possible before, but now how could she do it in good conscience, much less be accepted there?

She didn't fit into this world any more, at least in her teenage mindset. She's seen the dark side of the life she wanted to live, and seen how unhappy Yu Shu Lien (Yeoh) was in it, before and after Li's death. She knew she couldn't (or wouldn't) go back. What then to do?

Follow the one path that seemed to lead to her desires, both for a free life and (now) for redemption -- to take the leap-off-the-mountain-and-fly legend at face value, removing herself from this world and (hopefully) finding what she wished for in the next.

Or I could just be drunk on too much cough syrup.

jeff. not the first time on that