CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000). Ang Lee's has made a film of such delicacy and decorousness that also offers heart-stopping action sequences -- even if you're a fan of Hollywood action spectacles, you've never seen sequences like the ones here, which literally take flight. Lee has inspired some career-best work in his team of Asian legends, including charismatic superstars Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh, pioneering 1960s Hong Kong martial-arts star Cheng Pei Pei, cinematographer Peter Pau, and fight choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping. The ostensible main characters -- Giang Hu warrior-knights Li Mu Bai (Chow) and Yu Shu Lien (Yeoh), take a back seat to the story of Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi), a governor's daughter who longs to be a Giang Hu warrior but is engaged to marry another aristocrat. She also longs to be reunited with her secret lover, a swashbuckling desert bandit called Dark Cloud (Chang Chen). The combination of Hong Kong-style storytelling, state-of-the-art action, and Lee's own art-film preoccupations doesn't always mesh, much less soar. But when it does, you'll be stunned and overwhelmed.

Now playing at:

Campus Cinemas
Flagship Cinemas
Hoyts Providence 16
Pastime Theater
Showcase Cinemas Warwick
Showcase Cinemas Seekonk Route 6
Tri Boro Cinemas