8 January 2001

The papers have been full of reviews about this film and most so far have been enthusiastic. Some critics loved the cinematography and the beauty of China's landscape. Others liked the character portrayals associating it with Jane Austen and Shakespeare. Others still were fun-loving enough to admit that they really enjoyed the fight sequences, with much comparison to the Matrix.

But what might be the Chinese perspective on this: the perspective of people that grew up watching Chinese martial arts films and videos?

Mine at least is that it is a good film, not fantastic, but worth watching. There is nothing really new in it. Story-wise, it is formulaic in almost a Hollywood blockbuster fashion. Nothing in the roles really demands from the actors because they are playing genre stereotypes. However, Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh are beautiful and graceful. Zhao Yen Fat on the other hand is underused and plays a very straight good guy role. Thankfully the fight sequences are gripping (comparable to those in old films like Shaolin Temple), although I felt they got the physics of qigong jumping all wrong.

But perhaps one of the most interesting about the film was the audience. While watching, I realised that sometimes the audience laughed in the wrong places. Where I watched it, people laughed at the qigong jumping scenes, they sniggered when characters were imobilized using acu-pressure points, and when Chow Yen Fat's character talked about returning from mountain-top meditation. I realised that what I had always took to be accepted historical fact, others found to be slightly incredulous.

A part of me wanted to take offence at these people for laughing at what they perceived to be funny Chinese magic. But I am consoled by the fact that at least the mainstream film industry is investing in films where Chinese characters are being played by Chinese actors (unlike the Fu Man Chu of old), and where Chinese people are being portrayed as normal figures (and not as short, bi-spectacled, big-toothed grocers or take-away owners). Most of all, I am glad that I could pop over to my local cineplex and find a Chinese film, in Mandarin, to watch.

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