Film review- Crouching Tiger Hiden Dragon-Sword of Destiny

[Stella Castro]

Movie Review-Crouching Tiger hidden dragon-Sword of Destiny
This movie started out with a lot of violence, people fighting amongst each other and killing one another. They used swords as their weapons of destruction, (Probably has to do with the title, of the movie). However in the recent movies I have seen dealing with the Asian culture/community, I have noticed that the movies always start off with a lot of violence, and the violence is gory. Where they stab someone through the heart or behead the enemy. But I presume they do this as it is part of the Asian culture to behead people and then parade around with the heads, or hang the heads as prized tokens. That is what I previously learned from taking the Rise of Asia, fall seminar. However I was really impressed with the jumping/acrobatics of the people in this movie, they jumped so high, and so quickly and all the quick swift moves of their arms, feet, legs and body, they surely have to train for this motions. It reminded me of a book I read, “The Journeys of Socrates”, where Socrates, had to and wanted to be trained by the best, the master. What is amazing about this is that in fact it really exists/happens, in real life. The Samurai’s and the warriors exist and train to be the best. I believe samurai’s and warriors still exist today as they are often portrayed in the Asian culture movies. And also way back in the day when Bruce Lee was the king of the Asian movies, his movies also had a lot of violence and fighting, Bruce Lee also was able to beat a lot of men in one fight, and still was able to walk away. Bruce Lee had his own cult and groupies and all kids wanted to be just like him. Children at the time were interested in the nun-chucks, and all the kids back then wanted to be a Bruce Lee. Nowadays a kid would not know what a nun-chuck is, all the kids know nowadays is Video-games, (which I also learned is a big deal in China, nowadays); again I learned this through attending a lecture on Video gaming in China. However I am side-tracking away from my movie review with all my new found knowledge about the Asian culture, which I am now sharing with my readers.
So this movie is about trust, betrayal, admiration, honesty, treachery and maybe even love. The main point of this movie is that there is a sword that had belonged to a mighty king/person, and it is stolen, by a conniving traitor. The story begins with a girl wanting to be trained by an older woman, who is the widow of the great man/king, (whom the sword belongs to). The older woman asks the younger one who had trained her as they got into an altercation and fought. The young woman tells her who her teacher was and the older woman tells her to go back to her, to which the young women tells her she can’t because she id dead. Long story short in the interim there is a guy who is caught and held prisoner in a cage in the patio of the castle/home where the older woman resides. So he is able to watch the young woman train. At one point they become friends, and develop feeling for one another. The movie goes on with the trying to retrieve the sword, all though throughout the movie there are encounters with the enemies, and fighting occurs. This is the part I liked best as like I unmentioned before, all the swift moves the actors do. The kicking, the turning around, the acrobatics, and mainly the jumping, they jump so high I do not know how they can do this, but hey it’s a movie. Long story short fighting, violence, deaths occur, and then the sword is retrieved. Yey! everyone is happy and the movie ends.
What I did wrong was that I was supposed to write about how I can use this movie in the classroom, and not about the movie itself, so ways I can apply this movie in my classroom is to first of all teach my students not to be bullies and or to associate themselves with bullies. Being a bully is just plain mean and wrong. People get hurt when they are bullied and some people go as far as committing suicide because they are bullied. I would ask my students how they would feel if they found out that a person they had bullied had committed suicide because of their bullying them. I actually did ask my students this question and two of my students cries, I felt bad that I posed this question to them, but it was a teaching and learning moment/experience for the students as well as for me. The students got to experience the emotions that come with being a bully and being bullied. So we all learned something that day. I can also teach my students how to stand up for themselves, to be brave, honest and proud like some of the characters in the movie. I can also teach them that exercising is good for them. I can tell them that exercising is great for their bodies and will make them more agile again just like the characters in the movie, just like Bruce Lee, and who doesn’t want to be a quick, swift, strong, and able bodied person.

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