Ang Lee's movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a worldwide hit last year. Combining an epic love story, amazingly choreographed fight scenes, stunning photography and wonderful music, the film was one of the few subtitled movies to break $100million at the US box office.
Released on DVD in the UK on June 18th, I was eager to rewatch this film, learn more about the processes that went into making it, and enjoy it on my widescreen TV in crisp DVD.
However, a major problem for me - the subtitles are written too low down on the screen and clearly designed for people with ordinary 4:3 televisions. If you want to watch in widescreen, you can't read the subtitles!! This left me with 4 options:
1 - learn Mandarin. (Not really viable) 2 - watch it with the dubbed English soundtrack (YUK..lost a lot of the lyricism) 3 - watch it in 4:3 format (and what a waste when the picture now only takes up half of my TV screen) 4 - guess what they are saying and enjoy the visuals and music!
It is also undeniably true that the film loses out on the small screen. The cinema is the bast place to see it, where you can immerse yourself in the photography and concentrate on the subtitles without distractions. However, with wonderful DVD you can rewatch those amazing fight scenes and pause to see that it really *IS* Michelle Yeah and the other young girl doing that fabulous fight scene at the end.
I was also a little disappointed with the extras on the DVD. There is a "Making of.." featurette and interview with Michelle Yeoh, but the audio commentary with Ang Lee and writer James Schamus was not at all revealing. Especially in regard to the fight choreography.
Overall, a great film but one that is lessened on the small screen, and a rather disappointing DVD. If you missed it at the movies you might wonder what the fuss was about.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Martial Arts - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Bruce Lee, Sho Kosugi, James Ryan, Jim Kelly, Jimmy Wang Yu, Bolo Yeung, Christopher Lee
Production Year: 1991 - Martial Arts - Director: Tsui Hark - Original Language: Cantonese - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Donnie Yen, Jet Lee, Rosamund Kwan, Yuen Biao, Mok Sui Chung
Production Year: 2003 - Martial Arts - Director: Paul Hunter - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Seann William Scott, James King, Karel Roden
Production Year: 1985 - Martial Arts - Director: Cory Yuen - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Kurt McKinney, J.W. Fails, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Kathie Sileno, Peter 'Sugarfoot' Cunningham
Hmm, just tried on my Toshiba 28" widescreen TV and had no problem seeing all the subtitles in widescreen mode. However, they did get cut off in Cinema mode so maybe you need to change your TV settings?...
pakalang 20.06.2001 13:53
some good useful infos there for a dvd enthusiast like myself! cheers :)
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![Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon [DVD] [2001]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78543493.jpg "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon [DVD] [2001]")
Jun 19th, 2001
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