'Crouching Tiger' brings back beauty, exhilaration and a never-better Michelle Yeoh
It begins with a plaintive cello solo, followed by a crashing of drums: Serene melancholy yields to pulse-quickening excitement. Right from the start, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is built on a series of tensions that director Ang Lee is in no hurry to resolve. He eases us into a lost world — a Chinese village, sometime during the Qing dynasty — where two highly skilled fighters and longtime allies, Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-fat) and Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), are about to have a long-overdue reunion. They have some important business concerning a trip to Beijing, a deadly sword and Mu Bai's impending retirement, but their cautious body language tells a more personal story.
And Lee, to his credit, gives them the time and space to tell it. In every soft-edged gaze and wistful smile that passes between Mu Bai and Shu Lien, we can read years of unfulfilled, unarticulated longing. "So what will you do now?" she asks. His answer — he has a grave to visit and
