DIRECTED BY ANG LEE
MANDARIN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
DISTRIBUTED BY SONY PICTURES CLASSICS AND COLUMBIA PICTURES FILM
PRODUCTION ASIA, 2000
120 MINUTES, COLOR
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has become a “breakthrough” foreign language film for American audiences, far exceeding the U.S. box office records for foreign films. The $100 million collected in its first three and a half months is double the amount reaped by the next-highest-earning foreign film, Life Is Beautiful. Popular with general audiences and critics alike, Crouching Tiger was a hit at the Cannes Film Festival where audiences burst into applause after the first fight scene. It has also won numerous awards for best picture and director and received a total of ten Oscar nominations, winning four in original music score, art direction, cinematography and foreign language film categories. Commentators applaud its challenging the notion of “foreign language” as a genre category by inducing mainstream audiences to embrace a movie with subtitles.