Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Blu-ray Review

[admin]

Filled with gorgeous outdoor sets featuring wildly varying Chinese terrain lay a mythic story that seems torn from the pages of a half remembered fairy tale. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Ang Lee explores traditional Chinese cultural mores, unrequited love, class division, empowered women in a patriarchal society - and of course some of the best Wuxia martial arts action ever put to film! An unforgettable journey is brought to crisp, high definition life through Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on Blu-ray.


Discuss "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Blu-ray Review" here. Read the article.

[j_garcia]

Picking this one up tomorrow for sure.

[lsiberian]

It's my favorite film period. It's so beautiful with fantastic music, but make sure you play the mandarin track with subtitles because the English track isn't that good. The best fight scene is the one where Michelle Yeoh and Zhu Ziyi fight in a room. It's simply amazing. The musical score is also fantastic.

[j_garcia]

I have only ever seen it with the Mandarin track because the Superbit DVD doesn't include an English dub It has been out for a while on BD, just not by itself and I already own the other movies that come in the pack so I have been waiting for the individual release.

[Wayde Robson]

I did some switching on the Blu-ray between the Mandarin and the English, both are TrueHD soundtracks. I could hear no appreciable difference.

It definitely sounded like the gain was set a little higher on the Mandarin soundtrack, I don't know if this makes it 'better', but it's definitely louder if you don't adjust your system for it.

[lsiberian]

I did some switching on the Blu-ray between the Mandarin and the English, both are TrueHD soundtracks. I could hear no appreciable difference.

It definitely sounded like the gain was set a little higher on the Mandarin soundtrack, I don't know if this makes it 'better', but it's definitely louder if you don't adjust your system for it.

It's not the sound itself. The way the English is spoken just doesn't jive with the movie.

[Wayde Robson]

It's not the sound itself. The way the English is spoken just doesn't jive with the movie.

I hear what you're saying.

I looked for that too between the English spoken and the subtitles. I watched a few of the early scenes in Mandarin and read it, then watched some of the English w/ English subtitles to see the difference in what was being communicated.

I don't speak any Mandarin. But I could see differences in complexity of what was being expressed intermittently switching between the text and the English voices. Sometimes the text seemed to gloss over spoken details, sometimes the other way around.

There's no way for me to experience any Mandarin. I appreciate watching a subtitled foreign film, seeing emotion and cadence of the original language. It’s easier for me with French films because I can speak and understand some French.

With Mandarin I’m disconnected from sentence structure, I really don’t know where the punctuation or noun/verb relationship is when I hear it.

I’m comfortable listening to the English, although I’ve watched it in on DVD in Mandarin too. I don’t see that I’ve missed anything, but it’s just my opinion. If it makes anyone feel a great authenticity watching it in Mandarin – more power to you.

[nickboros]

Wayde,

I'm not really sure why you say that Crouching Tiger can't be purchased alone when it has been available that way for quite a while.

http://www.amazon.com/Crouching-Tige...0253176&sr=8-1

Anyways, I agree that it is ridiculous for movie studios to only offer films together in a set and not separately. The best examples of this type of thing has been on DVD. For a very long time you could only get the Alien films and Godfather films all together in a boxset and not separately. Many people don't like the Godfather part 3, which is why the studio forced you to buy it so that they can raise the sales of that title. The same goes for the 3rd and 4th Alien sequels.

[Wayde Robson]

Thanks for the info, I hope this helps someone who is interested in buying.

I was going by the documentation from Sony enclosed with the disc. I was send just CTHD, not the other two anyway, so I haven't seen this package myself yet. But SPHE said that's how they were distributing it.

Hopefully retailers themselves are being more flexible.

[darien87]

Wayde,

I'm not really sure why you say that Crouching Tiger can't be purchased alone when it has been available that way for quite a while.

http://www.amazon.com/Crouching-Tige...0253176&sr=8-1

Anyways, I agree that it is ridiculous for movie studios to only offer films together in a set and not separately. The best examples of this type of thing has been on DVD. For a very long time you could only get the Alien films and Godfather films all together in a boxset and not separately. Many people don't like the Godfather part 3, which is why the studio forced you to buy it so that they can raise the sales of that title. The same goes for the 3rd and 4th Alien sequels.

CTHD has not been available separately for "quite a while". It just came out by itself today.

I went and picked up my copy.

And as for the people that watch foreign movies dubbed, I think you're crazy. Watch a movie like The Warlords or just about ANY Japanese movie. The English voice actors NEVER convey the emotion that comes across in the native languages. For f'in sake, all the English voice actors that dubbed The Warlords spoke with a British accent! What the hell is that about? Is it supposed to help get across the "old-timey" historical vibe that the film is supposed to have?

Lame, lame, lame.

Native language is ALWAYS better.