UNIT 1: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon PDF

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This is the first required essay of the TFM 363 course. This essay is required as a response to the mix of Western and Eastern influences on Chinese cinema, beginning with this film, and how it connected international audiences in both Asia and the West....

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UNIT 1: ESSAY ON CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a fantasy period film whose plot is structured around a relic word called the Green Destiny. Its story, however, is a hero’s journey, and is about a young girl in China finding her way in life as a warrior and lover, seeking to overcome the social structures set upon her as a governor’s daughter. The narrative ensues with larceny. The girl steals the sword which has been passed on as a gift from a retired master swordsman. In a blog from Georgetown University, writer Wanyu Zheng describes the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as one pulling from both Western and Eastern cultures, given that the story centers around a young girl seeking independence in a largely interdependent culture. Zheng says, “[Director] Ang Lee always seeks to present his understanding of Eastern culture with the comparison of Western culture… Ancient Eastern culture is collectivism that values endurance and self-control, seeking some kind of infinite realm; Western culture is more of individualism that values courage and determination, seeking freedom and pleasure.” Given the movie is a period film set during the time of the Han Dynasty, the actions of the girl the story centers around in a Western context makes sense. Like a Western girl, she is defiant. She is not afraid to pursue what she wants and stand her ground for it. Not just her, but all women are portrayed as headstrong. Some hold nearly as much esteem, even notoriety, as a man. Take Yu Shu Lien and the primary antagonist Jade Fox, for instance. Both women follow the path of a warrior. They do not conform to traditional gender roles. Yu Shu Lien, one of the deuteragonists, is an unmarried older woman, which defies the norm for that period. According to an article in a forum about world cultures from Every Culture, a woman was by and large supposed to have an arranged marriage and marry fairly young. The main character, Jen Yu, is 18 and about to get married. She doesn’t want to. In a historical, Eastern-centric context, the actions of the girl and the social states of the other women don’t make nearly as much sense. In an article on Chinese women from a resource called Chinasage, “the leading [marriage] doctrine [during the Han Dynasty] became Confucian which sought to put everyone in their proper relationship and in this regard women were put below men.” A Confucius passage from the article states, “ a woman’s voice cannot be heard.” In the movie, women’s voices are heard all the time. It’s hardly surprising. Yu Shu Lien is always listened to in earnest and the main character even receives an offer from the retired master swordsman to train under him and inherit the Green Destiny sword, quite the gender role reversal. Director Ang Lee normalizes the interactions between men and women in the film by incorporating its historic Chinese setting into a fantasy context. It’s doubtful he would have been able to achieve the feat of bringing a Westernized approach to his female characters if it was not for that. At the onset of the show he makes sure you now women are just as respected as men with Yu Shu Lien’s interaction with the master swordsman. Bringing Chinese period culture to a Western audience and Chinese audience since the film is in Chinese, allows him to show both the West and the Asian East how the two can come together to create something new. And this

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newness entailed by the movie itself suggests a new era of freedom for women and redefined relationships with men.

Sources: Zheng, Wanyu. The Crouching Culture and Hidden Emotion In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. CCTP748: Media Theory and Digital Culture, https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/cctp-748-spring2013/2013/02/20/theconflict-between-eastern-and-western-culture-in-crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon/.

Every Culture. http://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Han-Marriage-andFamily.html

Chinese Women. http://www.chinasage.info/women.htm...