Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Feb. 6th, 2024 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kathleen_daileyI rewatched CTHD on TCM recently for the first time in quite a few years. Feelings ensued, so of course I went looking for fic.
I first saw the film when it came out in 2000. The friend I saw it with was very knowledgeable about the history and conventions of wuxia films, and he was a bit scornful of North American audiences who were so blown away by what he thought was an average and derivative movie. But I was enchanted by the unacted-on love between Li Mubai and Yu Shulien, and by the HK movie tropes, the wire work, the fight choreography--just everything. (That was also the genesis of my permanent fangirling of Michelle Yeoh.)
I wished that Ang Lee had paid more attention to Mubai/Shulien and less to Jen/Lo, but I knew that youth outdraws middle age at the box office. After the tragic ending, I immediately started thinking about a fixit. (There were at least two promising plot points left open, and fan writers have done a lot more with a lot less.) I made a couple of attempts but ultimately abandoned them.
Fortunately,![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
voleuse has written the fixit that I needed and wanted: " Free to Inhabit" is a sensitive, poignant, believable retelling of the past and reimagining of the future. In the author's words, "Maybe the legends of Wudang mountain are true. Maybe Jen wished for something beyond the impulsive desires of her young and hasty heart. Maybe this is the ending, rewritten. Maybe fate is not dictated by the lessons of sorrow."
I don't think I'll ever get over these characters. I never had a chance to see the sequel (which wasn't directed by Ang Lee), but I know the general plotline, and I prefer to accept "Free to Inhabit" as the true canonical sequel.
I first saw the film when it came out in 2000. The friend I saw it with was very knowledgeable about the history and conventions of wuxia films, and he was a bit scornful of North American audiences who were so blown away by what he thought was an average and derivative movie. But I was enchanted by the unacted-on love between Li Mubai and Yu Shulien, and by the HK movie tropes, the wire work, the fight choreography--just everything. (That was also the genesis of my permanent fangirling of Michelle Yeoh.)
I wished that Ang Lee had paid more attention to Mubai/Shulien and less to Jen/Lo, but I knew that youth outdraws middle age at the box office. After the tragic ending, I immediately started thinking about a fixit. (There were at least two promising plot points left open, and fan writers have done a lot more with a lot less.) I made a couple of attempts but ultimately abandoned them.
Fortunately,
I don't think I'll ever get over these characters. I never had a chance to see the sequel (which wasn't directed by Ang Lee), but I know the general plotline, and I prefer to accept "Free to Inhabit" as the true canonical sequel.
