Sixteen years after the original, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is back… on Netflix! That’s the irony of the Netflix business model, staying relevant by reviving properties from decades past.
The first Crouching Tiger, directed by Ang Lee, was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning four, and to some extent felt like the natural evolution of the kind über-stylized action movie popularized by the likes of John Woo. (Oh, you got flying doves? Well, we got flying people!) In retrospect, the film also feels like the high-water mark for action fantasy: There was always at least one kid who, unswayed by the jetpack defense, could never handle the idea of their GI Joes flying, and in the same way, Crouching Tiger‘s oft-imitated brand of wire-fu feels like a litmus test to separate concrete from magical thinkers. (I admit that even I have some trouble finding an internal logic to the action once characters start fighting on cliff’s edges or the roofs of tall buildings. I’m supposed to be worried they’ll fall? I just saw them fly!)