Explain the end of "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" to me.

I agree with Mangetout. She is flying - although very gracefully, I must add - downwards to her death!

Damn you Colophon!!! NOW you tell me! :smiley:

There’s a sequel? When is Ang Lee going to make it???

There are 5 books in the series, of which Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is number 3, so there are two written sequels. I don’t think the series has been translated into English, and I think that the movie is a fairly loose interpretation. I have never heard that Ang Lee was interested in making a sequel.

I assume she’s flying, since a suicide would presumably look anguished, which she certainly does not. The only way a suicide would have such a serene look on her face would be if she was somehow unbalanced, but there’s no evidence of that in the movie (beyond her being a messed up teenager, of course).

That said, there’s certainly a element of ambiguity to the scene, or we wouldn’t be here, would we? The problem, I think, is with why she jumped, rather than with how she landed. It’s clearly a matter of her leaving her old self behind, but people can do that with both feet on the ground. So I have to conclude that Lee did it because he was feeling arty, and because it looked really cool.

This is the interpretation I’ve always gone with: she finally realizes that she has been the cause of all this pain and death, and decides she is the one who should die - she doesn’t deserve to live happily ever after with her love. She definitely commits suicide. And the look of relief is that of finally understanding she is doing the “right thing.”
When it comes right down to it, she is a spoiled little brat - always after what suits her without any regard for others that care for her. At the end, she realizes the results of her actions and that she really wasn’t worthy.

The characters in the movie can clearly fly - at least one scene comes to mind in which Li Mu Bai simply gestures toward a certain spot and quickly floats there, without any kind of movement of his legs at all.

I never interpreted the end of the movie as a suicide at all. Watching it again on Youtube, I don’t think the suicide thing fits at all.

It’s a fantasy of ancient China in which highly-skilled martial artists can fly. Why is there a problem with that?

She wasn’t flying. She simply jumped and missed the ground. :smiley:

I didn’t take the scene to indicate she was committing suicide, but that she was otherwise leaving the world behind. I imagined her becoming a hermit on some mountaintop staring at her navel.

I always read it as her jumping to commit suicide, and then that last bit, being her flying along, because Lo’s love and his wish bouy her up - it’s a redemptive image for me. But I’m a Romantic that way.

Ok, hang on. It’s a totally different culture. It’s a Chinese fairy tale, in which martial artists can fly. And the Zen of flying away forever is an appropriate, and happy ending.

Thinking of it in Western terms does the story injustice. The ultimate goal in Chinese mythology is not necessarily to be happy but for your soul to be at peace. Who cares if you are not with your love in this lifetime? Better to bring your soul to peace, and that is what happens at the end.

When she jumps she’s prepared for either eventuality. Either she’ll grant Lo’s wish, or she’ll die, and either way is fine with her. She’s jumping out of her old life as the student of an evil master, and leaving that life is more important than knowing what will happen next.

Yes, I agree with Lemur866’s view.

She shows calmness and serenity because she has leaped off the bridge and committed herself to fate. Whether it is death on the rocks, or soaring into the clouds, she is prepared for either path instead of spending her life flailing against the path of balance and peace–driving all around her into chaos as a result (*insert handwavy Taoist symbolism here *).

She grew up. Lo’s wish of “being together in the desert” as swashbuckling Bandit Royalty is immature, childish, and unrealistic. She learned what caprice and disregard for others’ safety and feelings will get you.

So she left.

So those were aliens at the end of A.I., right?

Kidding! :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, I have to admit this thread has made me think. Watching that scene again, I definitely do think Crouching Tiger ends ambiguously. I think she’s jumping, not knowing what is going to happen. Either way, it seems clear that she is not going to come back to Lo no matter what(look at his reaction).

By the way, I wouldn’t rely on the books for information. Michelle Yeoh’s character didn’t even exist in the books, so they are not too deeply connected.

Yeah, I had the same reaction to Superman Returns. He can fly, shoot lasers out of his eyes, and catch airplanes out of the sky? I mean, what the hell? Where’s the realism?

Anyway, as for CTHD, my take on the end is that, at the very least, she realized that she couldn’t go and live happily ever after in the desert after she’d made it impossible for Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh to have the same sort of happiness. I don’t think she’s killing herself, though. Instead, she’s going out into the world to try to find some sort of redemption, leaving her and her bandit boyfriend in the same position as Chow Yun and Yeoh were at the beginning. By resolving (in a tragic manner) one impossible relationship, she’s created another. This may be my Western filters kicking in, but killing herself seems like a cop-out. It would be in keeping with the personality she’s displayed up to that point in the movie, but it would mean that she had not grown or changed at all by the film’s conclusion, which I don’t find to be an emotionally satisfying intrepretation. Instead, I think she’s gone out to walk the Earth. Like Kane, from Kung Fu.

A cite or two, please, for:

The claim that in chinese mythology, “the ultimate goal is not necessarily to be happy but for your soul to be at peace.”

The implication that in Western mythology, the goal is not for your soul to be at peace but for you to be happy.

-FrL-

Miller: It’s Caine from Kung Fu. His first name began with a “K” though. :stuck_out_tongue:

Don’t really have an explanation for the OP, but I wish to add that I didn’t really get this film until the third viewing.

The first, I was reading the words and following the story. The second, I was watching the character who was talking.

The third, emotionally devastating time, I was watching the character who was listening. Ang Lee obviously spends considerable effort directing every actor in every scene, and this film is not about what is said but what goes unsaid. The love between Chow Yun Fat’s Li Mu Bai and Michelle Yeoh’s Yu Shu Lien was most visible as they listened to each other.

No, I was… uh… talking about a different Kung Fu.

Yeah, that’s the ticket…