The hidden Ang Lee

>> Chameleon director reveals his high-kicking dimension with the period martial arts film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

by MATTHEW HAYS

Nothing about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon feels expected. It's a gorgeously shot, exquisitely costumed period war movie, set in the 19th century and starring the rising Asian stars Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun-Fat and Zhang Ziyi.

But at the same time, it's a high-kicking martial arts movie, with fight scenes thanks to choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping (The Matrix), effectively dumping 21st-century baggage in the middle of a 19th-century setting.

If it sounds bizarre, it is--a film that confounds our expectations, in which a flying murderess clashes with an aging warrior (played by Chow), who's ready for one last battle before hanging up his 400-year-old sword, the Green Destiny, and retiring. Heightening the moody score is none other than Yo-Yo Ma, whose cello solos punctuate the film.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon might sound like some kind of cosmic fluke, a bizarre collusion of periods, styles and talents. But when one takes into consideration the career of its director, Ang Lee, the film fits into a larger picture. Tiger could be seen as a perfect symbol of Lee's oeuvre--an unpredictable surprise package, a courageous pushing of the envelope of yet another genre.

Pushing expectations

"I didn't deliver a Hollywood script," says Lee, a soft-spoken and unassuming man. "I pitched this as an epic drama. But I didn't deliver a Hollywood film. And I never will." And indeed, he never has.

After the Taiwanese-born director immigrated to the U.S. and graduated with a Master's in film production from NYU, his trilogy of first- and second-generation cultural clashes, Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman received stellar international critical praise. All three films dealt with personal and intimate family relations, and did so with a striking honesty and realism that made them arthouse hits.

What followed surprised everyone, as Lee turned to period literary adaptation, helming the Emma-Thompson-penned cinematic adaptation of the eponymous Jane Austen novel, Sense and Sensibility (the film also won over audiences and resulted in an Oscar for Thompson's screenplay).

Then Lee surprised everyone once more: the director took on another period, this time a Watergate-drenched America in the malaise of the '70s. The Ice Storm again depicted very, very complicated human and family relations, all set amid the onslaught of a weather phenom that looked only too familiar to Montrealers, a dangerous layer of frozen rain.

And most recently, last year's Ride With the Devil, a war movie set during the American Civil War, a project that garnered Lee's most divided critiques and most disappointing box office.

Devils and tigers and dragons, oh my

Which begs the question of the moment: What on earth would herald this bit of career evolution, one that would lead Lee to a film like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? "Actually, it's not a total leap," Lee says, correcting me. "I made a war film with Ride With the Devil. But I see what you're saying. For me, this was a boyhood dream come true. I grew up with martial arts movies. It was one of the things I'd always really wanted to do. I had worked on lower-budget films, family dramas. After five family dramas, it felt like time to expand my film language."

The film's screenplay was adapted from an early-20th-century novel by Wang Du Lu, and Lee concedes that corralling the $12-million (U.S.) budget was not an easy thing. "Once you've achieved a level of success, the studios really expect you to turn out a genre film. I'm just not interested. I want to do big things, yes, but I want to do them creatively and personally. I don't do genre films. I do twists on genre films."

Lee's cynicism is showing. He looks down, staring at the table before him as he describes the process of hawking his film projects. I pose a loaded question: Is he disillusioned that the industry has become more about pitches and trailers than the film itself? He answers without pause and in a single syllable: "Yes." The pitch sessions for Tiger, he recounts, were rife with references to his earlier successes--something he knew would make for a surefire hit. "The pitch for this movie was Sense and Sensibility with martial arts. I guess now I'll have to live up to that, which will be tough."

And Lee found that certain words were verboten while in pitch mode. "Over the years, I've learned not to use the word sad. They really don't react well to that one. To me, sadness is the most profound feeling, the one that has so much dimension. If you say profoundly moving, then it's okay."

But what about the recent sad trend, I ask Lee, as witnessed in a film like American Beauty, in which the ending to the Best-Picture-Oscar-winning film was decidedly downbeat? "They're smart about it. Even when the film is about losing it's about winning something. I would argue that film's ending isn't really downbeat."

The most difficult element of sitting in the director's chair for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was, without a doubt, the martial arts element. Lee says that working with the choreographers "is a totally different thing. Really, they are filmmakers in their own right. Many of the people I was working with were Chinese opera acrobats since they were nine. It came a lot differently for them then it did me."

A musical moment

Lee's lessons from the set of Tiger confirm what many of us have suspected for a while now. That despite the death of the traditional musical (and it is dead, despite the valiant efforts of Woody Allen, Kenneth Branagh and Alan Parker), the genre lives on under the auspices of martial arts moviemaking. "These films are musicals in principle. I learned the painful way that martial arts has little to do with martial arts. It's about dancing. And the fight numbers face similar obstacles dance numbers do. The fighting scenes have to be an expansion of character and plot, not just sit there in the middle of the film."

For all the talk of musicals and artiness, Lee knows there are considerable risks involved with his latest endeavour. He has faith--Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon packed screenings at both Cannes and the Toronto International Film Festivals. But he also knows that festivals are mysterious and unpredictable things, and what appeals to fest audiences doesn't always translate into mainstream--or even arthouse--success. Not only is Tiger an unusual flick, it's got subtitles (something North American audiences have an ongoing allergy to). "And different audiences have different tastes," Lee points out. "In Europe they accept dubbing and don't like the subtitles. Here they won't accept dubbing but aren't thrilled about the subtitles either. Frankly, what's more scary to me is what people are going to say. For a Chinese audience, this film will present something of a homecoming. They'll want to see what I'm doing now that I'm a hot shot returning from America. The investment of $12-million (U.S.) doesn't sound like much here, but that's Titanic in the Chinese film industry. Then there's the pressure of the highbrow audiences here."

Then, Lee pauses. As if to underscore the dilemma of the film artist--a visionary caught in a very, very expensive business--he returns to the topic of money. "I really don't want to lose money on this one. Not like the last two. Yes, The Ice Storm was an arthouse success, but nothing more. People saw it on video. I still believe in Ride With the Devil, but it was disastrous. Three in a row would not be a good sign."

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon opens Friday, Dec. 8