Review of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
... spouse died is consider very honorable while it was sinful to marry other man. Some of women who stay single long enough would even get a memorial monument. Marry a friend who had died could be consider as a betrayer. Although for the time passes, they had developed feeling for each other, they both can’t accept to break the norm at the time. In the middle of the film, Mu Bai manages to take the courage to convince Shu Lien to be together. In modern Chinese society, they being together doesn’t conflict with morality yet old Chinese people believe it’s noble to have loyality to their dead spouse. What Mu Bai did wasn’t exactly a break though of old moral standard it’s people at the time will consider a great martial art master like him would live up the standard above regular people. In old and modern Chinese culture, women have very little liberty. Women in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Jen and Shu Lien, are the prisoner of this life style. Jen the daughter of a powerful Chinese official, grows up in a fancy family, but she doesn’t think it as a privilege, in stead, it’s a irritation for her. In ancient Chinese society, girls like Jen are not likely to have chance to go out alone. For wealthy families, the daughter’s role was to stay home until they get old enough to marry into another wealthy family. One of the reason to stay indoor was that Chinese people believes women’s beauty comes from white skin and it’s still a common belief there today. This film point that out with different make up Jen and Shu Lien had. It was obvious Jen’s appearance looks whiter than the working girl. The character of Jen was a young woman who pursuit for freedom and break the old tradition. The marriages for old generation of young women in China have no choice but to listen to their parent. In ancient times, if a guy find a girl he likes, he then ask his parents for approval, then they send somebody, usually elder women, to the girl’s house. If her parents agree,...