Crouching Dragon—The Tiger Lily Cut

When the original was released in 2000, it sent thousands of Asia film fanboys into a tailspin tizzy.
“This is going to ruin all our cherished Hong Kong and Japanese exploitation fun!”
Apologists for the film and peddlers of imports did their best to mollify all those nervous Nellies.
And yet - - the mainstream Western world got exposed to and excited by Asian action cinema.
Crouching Tiger made a shitload of money, and, as doomsayers predicted, future Asian fare became ever more tasteful. Easier for the world digestion. The wackiness was on the fade.
All hail ssj for doing his best to return this talky bi-polar film to the crazy roots of Shaw Brothers!

Video - MPEG-4, 960 X 400p. Now this is widescreen. Plenty of dark scenes in this, though I saw nothing amiss. There were quick edits, but one gets so caught up in the goings-on that you don’t pay attention.

Audio - 2 Channel stereo, AAC. 160 Kbps. Subtitles - Yes, some of the best! This reviewer does not understand Mandarin, so I did more reading than listening. The audio seems exactly as the original. Fine for dialogue. Actiony bits by Shanghai Percussion Ensemble terrific. Anytime Yo Yo Ma picks up his cello, naptime.

Narrative - Bit overdone, with references to orcs and goblins and other creep-sters. If creatures get mentioned, then I want to see them. The Iron Chef theme comes and goes worse than a studied accent. Often I had no idea what was going on, plot wise. Jokes not necessarily relatable to ongoing screen follies.

Enjoyment - This is a great antidote to the borefest that the original was. Energy level diminishes in the final act, and jokes start to fall flat. The story tumbles into a confused mess, but I laughed out loud often. ssj has provides several generous extras, as well. Info sheet, trailer, and extraordinary press conference with Michelle Yeoh. Brilliant. I only wish I had a time machine and could kick a copy of this back to 2000 era readers of Asian Cult Cinema.

Rebue:

A mind-bending re-imagining of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon through the use of rewritten subtitles. Now a story of drugs, love, sex, and more drugs.

I really enjoyed this edit, even when I didn't quite understand it. ssj is a demented (in the best way) poet, and the subs are never dull. I chuckled many a time and even ALLOL'd (actually literally laughed out loud) several times.

The only disappointment was that the humor slows down in the second half of the edit, as there is not much dialogue to subtitle. But then again, we still get to watch the great action sequences, so that's not a bad thing.

Highly recommended to all dragonkin and non-dragonkin alike. I rate this 9 out of 10 Banana Lime and White Peach Yogurt Fountains.

(*Note: I did not rate audio/video quality as I watched this on my phone)

I loved the idea. It would be great to see more fanedits take the same approach. I had difficulty sometimes with pacing and theme. Long, drawn-out fight scenes don't make much sense to me with talk of orcs, drow, undead in the subtitles. Nevertheless, I still recommend this as a courageous and brilliant fanedit. May imitation be the best flattery ssj receives.

Simply put, the freshest and funniest fanedit idea for quite a while. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a perfect candidate to be drawn a clown nose on, at least for a fan of deadpan humor as myself, as it's a straight-face film that is thematically solid and strikingly beautiful to look at, yet at the same time quite pompous, and over the top as only a wuxia movie can be. With these elements, watching these characters so earnestly spout out the insanities ssj dared to write for them, and recite vulgarity with the same aplomb as it was Shakespeare, is a match made in laughter heaven. Best culinary ganja martial arts action comedy ever.

Video and audio are mostly fine all through, yet I noticed some image artifact/pixellation at moments of heavy movement (watched the HD version), and a couple of hard audio cuts: at 0:04:35 after "Nocturnal birdwatching. What a strange hobby!" and at 0:06:42, where it even seems to go to total silence for a split second. There might be more instances, but I was so inmersed in the whole experience that I even forgot to nitpick.

And now, ssj, I want MORE. I desperately want you to do that certain follow-up that shouldn't be spoken of for now. And for everyone: WATCH THIS EDIT. NOW. And laugh your asses off.

Watched this with my firends last night, and we all loved it. Hysterical!