Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)

I'm not reviewing this film as a martial-arts connoisseur or anyone else who says it isn't purely traditional (which to me means somewhere between chop-socky and Bruce Lee anyway) or its wire-work choreography is too obvious. I see this movie as a gracious blend of beautiful cinematography, masterful martial arts, elegant choreography, and an engagingly complex story. True, the wire work looks slightly false to Western eyes when it ignores the physical laws of inertia and momentum, but it is so smoothly done that it comes across more like magical realism and thus within the bounds of the suspense of disbelief. It works for me. This is the best martial-arts film I have ever seen. Five stars.