Because kung fu films tend to center on the actual and pragmatic application of combat techniques and the training, which means anyone can learn kung fu as long as s/he pays effort, kung fu films can set against a modern and even contemporary background while a wuxia film has to be situated in a historical or mythical setting because of its fantastic premise.Īs a result of its overwhelming reliance on history, wuxia films are considered a Chinese genre. While kung fu film focuses on physical fighting on the ground and body training, wuxia film emphasizes on qinggong, a training that can make people fly weightlessly, and allows for phantasmagoric actions (Teo 4-5). Wuxia film is usually confused with kung fu film, a genre more familiar by the Western viewers. Therefore, wuxia film is a combination of martial arts with the pursuit of chivalry and righteousness. Wu (武) means militaristic or martial qualities and xia (侠) refers to chivalry, knighthood and heroism. Wuxia film, though it is often identified as “the swordplay film,” has no satisfactory English translation (Teo 2). Wuxia film is usually considered an exclusively Chinese genre. Wuxia film is the oldest genre in the Chinese cinema that has remained popular to the present day.
Its genre of wuxia film, its adaptation from a Chinese wuxia novel, its starring of Chinese-ethnicity actors and actresses, and its use of Mandarin all show the Chineseness of Crouching Tiger. This paper intends to illustrate both the local and global elements in this film and argues that the popularity of Crouching Tiger is based on its harmonious combination of the representation of ancient China and universally applicable ideas, which appeal to Western audience. Such ambiguity shows Chinese people’s anxiety about Chineseness, especially what it means to be Chinese in the context of the Asian invasion of the West. On the one hand, a kind of cultural nationalism lured Chinese audiences to support it on the other hand, Chinese viewers were also afraid that this film presented stereotypical, exotic and traditional images of Chinese in order to pander to “a Western gaze” (Chan 4).
Though Crouching Tiger was a huge success in the West, the Chinese had an ambivalent attitude toward it. For a film fromof a genre that is exclusively Chinese, the success and wild acceptance of Crouching Tiger in the West is an example of a local film going global. It eventually won four: Best Foreign-Language Film, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Original Score. It received two Golden Globes and was the first foreign-language film to be nominated in ten categories in the Academy Awards, surpassing the seven nominations of the Italian film A Beautiful Mind (Wu and Man Chan 196). Upon its release, it swept across Europe and north America. Local Goes Global: The Transnational Reception of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon AnalysisĪng Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) (hereinafter referred as Crouching Tiger) is a millstone in the history of the martial arts films.
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