The 2000-released wuxia arts film titled Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was directed by Ang Lee, who took the opportunity to go international with this movie. Screenplay writers Wang Hui Ling, James Schamus, and Tsai Kuo Jung took inspiration from writer Wang Dulu’s novel. The film is based on the fourth part of the novel series and around the early 1940s.
The film was successfully made with the East and West collaboration. Even with its dialogues in Mandarin and the release of the subtitled version in the West, the movie managed to get a positive response from its audience. The film was loved to the point that it became America’s highest-grossing international film at its release.
The success of the film got more defined by the numerous prestigious awards it received, including the Academy Awards, BAFTAs, and the Golden Globe Awards. The film also got to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in the same year as it was released.
The film stars actor Chow Yun Fat as Li Mu Bai, Michelle Yeoh as Yu Shu Lien, Zhang Ziyi as Jen Yu, Chang Chen as Lo Xiao Hou, Lang SiHung as Sir Te, and Cheng Pei Pei as Jade Fox. The film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon follows the story of Master Li requesting the love of his life, Yu Shu Lien, to pass his sword, Green Destiny, on to Sir Te and how when the sword gets stolen, Li decides to go on a venture to find his sword and get it back.
The movie has been praised for casting such fine actors to portray the characters in the story and also for its amazing cinematography and its story direction. Some also take the praise even further by calling the film one of the most well-made Wuxia films ever made.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Ending Explained
The entire story of the film revolves around the world of martial arts with well-trained and disciplined people that have ambitions and big dreams. The film kicks off with the main characters and the background set in the latter half of the Qing dynasty. Here, Li Mu Bai is a great renowned swordsman, and Yu Shu Lien works at a security office.
The two are clearly in love but refuse to share and acknowledge each other’s feelings out of respect for Mu Bai’s now-dead friend and Shu Lien’s former fiance, Meng Sizhao. The movie wastes no time in quickly moving towards the actual plot, where Mu Bai announces his retirement and agrees to let his good friend inherit his sword called Green Destiny.
The sword is no ordinary one at all and is rumored to have a four hundred years-long history. Shu Lien agrees to bring the sword to his friend, Sir Te, and starts her journey to Beijing. Upon reaching, Shu Lien and the audience is introduced to Jen Yu, the beautiful daughter of the influential Governor Yu. We are also introduced to another woman called Jade Fox through a flashback, and we see that she was the one who had murdered Mu Bai’s master to get her hands on the Wudang martial arts skill secrets.
The Missing Green Destiny
A few nights after the sword reached the hands of Sir Te, a thief with their face covered sneaks into the former’s place and takes the sword away. While still in Beijing, Shu Lien takes it upon herself to get the sword back to its new owner and, in the process, finds clues that lead her to the Governor’s house. It is here we discover that Jade Fox, the one who killed Mu Bai’s Master, has been working as Jen Yu’s Governess, all the while hiding her real identity.
Mu Bai also decides to come down to Beijing to help find the sword. It is while Shu Lien is updating Mu Bai with all that she found regarding the theft Jade Fox challenges Master Bo, a worker at Sir Te’s house, and the police father and his daughter pair to a duel. It becomes obvious very soon that Fox has been secretly training as she easily manages to dominate the three.
Mu Bai reaches just in time to help the three, and it is here she finally reveals the actual reason why she killed Mu Bai’s master. She reveals that he refused to teach his art to a woman no matter her abilities and ambition and to her, it only felt right for him to die by a woman’s hand. The thief who stole the sword comes up once again and helps Fox flee the hostile situation.
Jen Yu’s Backstory
Before running away, she kills the police and realizes that the thief is actually Jen Yu, who had come across the Wudang arts manual and had trained secretly with it. The same night a bandit named Lo sneakily enters Jen Yu’s room and asks her to run away with him. In a flashback, we are told that both Jen Yu and Lo actually know each other from when Lo stole Jen’s comb, and the latter ran after Lo to get it back but accidentally fell in love with him.
An important scene occurs during the flashback when Lo tells Jen Yu the story of a man with a pure heart and intentions who jumped off of a cliff to get his wishes to come true. At the present time, Lo decides not to let Jen Yu marry the man she was supposed to marry by interrupting her wedding. Shu Lien and Mu Bai try to help the two lovers somehow be together and ask Lo to wait at Mount Wudang, away from the wedding processions.
Jen decides it best for her to run right before her wedding gets consummated, which she does dress as a man. She carries the Green Destiny with her and fights off whoever comes her way. Shu Lien finds Jen Yu to let her know that Lo is waiting for her at the mountain, but something does not seem to sit well between the two, and they get into a fight.
Though Shu Lien is a better fighter, Jen Yu manages to defeat her because of the special sword she wields. But in the end, even with the Green Destiny, she gets defeated by Shu Lien. Unlike his master, Mu Bai agrees to take Jen in as his disciple, but Jen puts forth a condition that Mu Bai easily manages to cover. Jen Yu gets hurt while getting the sword back from Mu Bai, but this time her Governess, Jade Fox, saves her and looks after her.
A Cruel End
Shu Lien and Mu Bai somehow manage to find the two, but before they can make a move, Fox throws at them poisonous needles, which Mu Bai deals with effortlessly, except for the one that gets stuck in his neck. Even so, Mu Bai is able to kill Fox and confess to Shu Lien his actual feelings, after which he passes away.
Upon finding that Jade actually planned on killing Jen Yu, the latter decides to help Mu Bai, but she is a step too late. Shu Lien forgives Jen and gives her a chance to walk away with the one she really loves, also telling her to be her true self always. Jen runs back to Lo, who she had left alone at Mount Wudang, and the two spend a happy night together.
The next morning Jen feels completely changed as she asks Lo to make a with while she overlooks the view of the mountain while standing at its edge. Lo tells her that he wishes for the two to go back to the time they spent in the desert when they first met. Upon hearing this, Jen jumps off the cliff, much like the man in the old tale Lo had told her about in the desert.
In a lot of ways, it is possible that Shu Lien saw a part of herself in Jen Yu as the two shared a love for martial arts, wanted to exercise their freedoms just like any man would, and had forbidden lovers. With Mu Bai dead, it might have been the realization that it is too late for her to say anything about her feelings for him, which is why she forgave Jen Yu for mistakes in hopes that at least one of them gets to live the life they truly wish for.
If there was one thing Jen Yu longed for more than her secret lover was her freedom and her own identity. And her jump, at last, does not feel like one of sacrifice or fear or any grand feeling, and it is more like her last attempt to grab onto her freedom, the one she felt away from her family, in the desert, with Lo. While jumping, she had a peaceful and calm expression, one that knew that she had a pure heart meaning the wish would come true.
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