Zhang Ziyi

He directed an adaptation that ostensibly tells the story of a stolen fabled sword, the Green Destiny, and the arduous multi-generational journey taken to get it back.

And the cast he assembled is legendary, a Pan-Asian powerhouse, Michelle Yeoh, Chang Chen, Chow Yun-fat, and a star-making turn by Zhang Ziyi.

And what Ang Lee does brilliantly is he takes the literal soaring of the wuxia genre, the wire work, the characters literally running across rooftops and fighting while balanced on the swaying tips of bamboo forests-

And he uses that physical weightlessness to contrast the intense heavy emotional repression of the characters

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... in-

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Zhang Ziyi in-

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is absolutely gorgeous.

Yeah, and Ziyi Zhang is incredible in that movie.

And both her fighting prowess and just her acting and everything she's given in that movie is incredible.

I think what's harder for me, it's not hard to argue them because I could easily put them up there, but it's such a more somber and quiet take on When sat next to all these other movies that are so high octane, this one's definitely a slower.

But her laziness, her honest rejection of the grind completely cracked the door open for cinematic history.

Because she said no, the opportunity fell to a 19-year-old actress named Zhang Ziyi.

Which is where the alchemy of casting truly begins to manifest.

Because Zhang Ziyi was practically an unknown at this point.

This was only her second feature film ever.

Wow.

He saw that her physiological response to the pressure, the subtle tension in the jaw, the darting of the eyes, the slightly elevated breathing, was exactly what Jen needed to feel dangerous on screen.

That is a brilliant piece of psychological manipulation by the director.

can do what he needs to do.

And there are some very kind of Rube Goldberg-ass type of action pieces at the end where certain things have to kind of fire a certain way for certain things to happen, but you know, I do love the fight between him and, and Zhang Ziyi where he's like, you know, at the end of, he's like, we could have been somebody, you know, we could have, could have, could have been beautiful, but you're crazy.

Oh man.

Yeah.

They gave him a bunch of great lines to say.

You know, he's often running pretty early.

His sort of back and forth with Zhang Ziyi is pretty funny.

You

But this does look like Raphael on a roof to me from Snake Eyes there.

And of course, the jinx shot is just pure Zhang Ziyi, like floating across the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon rooftops.

Anyway.

Couchbiss says, Jinx sold this out.

And I was kind of angry, so I dropped out of the shooting.

Actually, Zhang Ziyi, the female lead, and I already worked about a week deep in the desert, you know, and already shot several scenes.

And then because of this money matter, and they've been very dishonest with me, I said, Forget about

it.

And in 226 BC, Yan submitted to Qin, and that was the end of them.

If you'd like to see a movie version of these events, may I humbly suggest Chen Kaige's The Emperor and the Assassin starring Gong Li, as well as Zhang Yimou's Hero with megastars Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheng, Chen Daoming, Zhang Ziyi, and Donnie Yen starring.

That was a good one.

No shortage of star power in that film.