Twenty Years Later

"These hands speak"

 

The recent enthusiasm for EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE with its Asian inspirations (and references to Hong Kong cinema of the past) reminds me of the similar widespread embrace of films that normally don’t make it to the mainstream, that greeted CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON which was released in 2000 after a runaway success at the Cannes Film Festival and then Oscars.

Although I admire the work of the directors and the impact of the two films, I have less enthusiasm for either of them. The motivation of each film seems weak in the context of their pedigrees and in relation to their varied sources – King Hu, Li Hanxiang, Chau Sing-chi, Hung Kam-bo et al. The insertion of a character driven melodrama into the Matrix-style cyclonic action of CTHD veers on the mechanical unlike say a Chor Yuen film like THE SENTIMENTAL SWORDSMAN where the point of the character is to carry the action not emotion. Similarly with EEAAO, which is almost a text book demonstration of the “montage of distractions,” showy without point, and more important lacking the surprising unconscious of  incongruous and abrupt changes in personality in a movie like Stephen Chow's KING OF COMEDY !999). Simply put, EEAAO seems to me the product of deliberate eccentricity, not a true mise-en-scene of creative freedom.

 

But what is impressive throughout all of these two films, no matter how one sees them, is the presence of Michelle Yeoh. The measure of time is seen in the grace of her movements, the inscription of her face. It is in effect, timeless in its expression and gravity. Michelle Yeoh confirms that she is an actress for the cinema, she defies time as much as she defies gravity.

Already in CTHD she is the aging veteran, living in the Jianghu world that is not too different from the Western – there is always someone ready to defeat you for your position as top dog. The question is not if, and not even when, but HOW. Zhang Ziyi’s (CG-ized) skill in the film as she sprints over rooftops is the signifier of a new world where innovation will displace old school practices. I think this is a question that Wong Kar-wai grapples with in the underrated THE GRANDMASTER where one could contemplate and speculate what that film would have been like with Michelle Yeoh instead of Zhang Ziyi.