Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

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Topic: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Tom Sauter
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 163
From: Buffalo, NY, USA
Registered: Sep 2000

posted 12-29-2000 08:09 AM

Too cool. This was one of the best films of
the year. It has it all: conflict, action
characters with substance, kung-fu, scenery,
humor, and insight. Did I mention kung-fu?

I saw this movie with a kung-fu nut friend
of mine and our dates, and everyone had a
good time. Seeing it on opening night in a
1940s house with 1000 other people added to
the experience.

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Ian Price
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1714
From: Denver, CO
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-29-2000 12:34 PM

I saw this film twice at the Telluride Film Festival and loved it.

Sony thinks it should get a commercial release. They think they are going to break the record for a forien release. So as a result, I don't get to play it at my theatre. Damn! They are marketing it as a kung-fu film even though it is as much a pair of love stories as it is a fight film. It did quite will in San Francisco this week. It was number two behind Cast Away.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-29-2000 09:07 PM

I will third the recommendation for this. I enjoyed it tonight (along with about 500 others in a 700-seat theatre...not bad!).

I will give this film a great deal of credit for having a cool trailer and then living up to it in the actual film. Further, I will give Ang Lee lots of credit for making such a wide variety of films--from Sense and Sensibility (which I didn't really enjoy) to Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger (which I did). Two thumbs up.

On the other hand, it's kind of annoying when the local art house gets a film like this which is even slightly "mainstream" and suddenly the normally sedate customers are joined by morons who do things like bring their 4-year-old kids to the film and then don't seem to mind when said brats start running up and down the aisles in the middle of the film. Ugh. It's always interesting at the end of the film, since one can distinguish between the theatre's regular customers and the mainstream "yes, I like foreign films" types by observing who gets up and leaves the second the credits appear...

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Tom Sauter
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 163
From: Buffalo, NY, USA
Registered: Sep 2000

posted 01-03-2001 08:32 AM

No kids at this one... went to the 9:15PM show! The iffy nature of the neighborhood surrounding the cinema keeps the soccer moms and their charges from making appearances.

Sony would have made a killing with commercial release.

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Paul Konen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 981
From: Frisco, TX. (North of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-08-2001 08:47 AM

My theatre is the only one in the Dallas area aside from 2-3 others that are showing this film. This film sells out almost every show except for the first round during the weekends.

Since it arrived, we moved it from our smallest (124) to our largest medium (266) as quick as we could. We would have placed it in our largest (563) if we didn't have Cast Away in one and the DLP, playing Emperor's, taking up the other.

It's amazing that this film made the top ten this weekend (1/8) with only 173 theatres and $3.7M

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Erik Schill
Film Handler

Posts: 38
From: Rochester, NY, USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 01-14-2001 11:45 AM

We FINALLY got this, this week, I ran it down on thursday, it was pretty good, except for 2 of the "kids" I work with that came to see it that must have ADD kept talking, and throwing stuff durring the movie, it made it hard to concentrate on the subtitles. After the movie I went to tell them that they are both assholes, and not to expect me to ever let them back into a run-down. One of the pluses about not being a manager, I can be a prick when I want

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Tom Sauter
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 163
From: Buffalo, NY, USA
Registered: Sep 2000

posted 01-15-2001 10:06 AM

I have no qualms about asing people to stop
talking, and have even has jerks removed from
the theatre. I demand common courtesy when I
pay 6.50 for a film.

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Ian Price
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1714
From: Denver, CO
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-16-2001 11:33 AM

$6.50 for a ticket? I hope you mean a discounted price.

We are about to bump our general admission rate up to $8.00.

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Tom Sauter
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 163
From: Buffalo, NY, USA
Registered: Sep 2000

posted 01-16-2001 12:23 PM

One local chain here is $6.50, most National chains are 7 or 7.50.

The depressed Upstate NY economy keeps prices a bit lower than the national average, perhaps.

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Erik Schill
Film Handler

Posts: 38
From: Rochester, NY, USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 01-16-2001 03:07 PM

over here in rochester, our ticket prices just went up to 7.00....but I've been to other places in upstate where I've seen 9.50

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Heyward Garner
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 101
From: Winston-Salem, NC, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 01-22-2001 12:21 AM

Well Damn... The buzz has reached Winston-Salem, and yes, Sony would have made a damn fortune with a wide release. Customers and lowly floor staff are constantly inquiring about the film. Best I can say is that Greensboro (a 45 minute drive on a GOOD day) has it, and far as I know, that's about it for the state of North Carolina. We appear to be displayed as uneducated country folk down here... Well, not all of us...

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Dwayne Caldwell
Master Film Handler

Posts: 323
From: Rockwall, TX, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 02-09-2001 01:31 PM

I finally got to see this. It was so-so. Maybe I need to watch it again because I saw this at the AMC Mesquite 30 while I was in town in Dallas, and I honestly don't know why I let my brother talk me into seeing it there in the first place because I should have known what kind of quality to expect. Another reason why I probably didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would was because I was tired and thought the fight sequences might make me up.

The film definitely has its moments although there was one part of the movie that threw me for a loop at first because I've never seen a movie that dedicated an entire reel to a flashback sequence. Maybe I don't watch enough art house material, but I've just never seen a flashback last that long.

As for the actual presentation, well let's just say if this theatre's using filmguard, they're not using it right. Or maybe they're forgetting that they have to rewind the pads after every show. Neither would surprise me. And whoever their projectionist is, he's not taking the time to clean the film gate. There was one clump of dirt trapped in the middle of the top portion of the screen, and it made me feel like I was watching the entire movie through a pair of binoculars, which is just as well because the sound certainly sucked.

And though this has nothing really to do with the actual movie, these guys at the Mesquite really ought to think about updating their trailer packages. They still had the teaser for Pearl Harbor and were also playing the trailer for Snatch even though they were playing the actual movie there. Maybe they're re-instituting concurrent trailer programming there, but I doubt it. Anyway, I just thought I'd share my miserable experience with the rest of you. Now that I think about it, watching this movie at an AMC and critiquing it is really unfair to the actual work of art itself, so maybe I will watch it again.

------------------
The man with the magic hands.

Per Hauberg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 883
From: Malling, Denmark
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 02-13-2001 04:47 PM

"BARBARA CARTLAND ENTERS THE DRAGON"
Is it normal, chinese women galloping 'round the tree-tops ?
Please ask the nice man to stay with Sense & Sensibility, and the art-house-snobs to pull down their hands.
BTW was it just the danish prints, or did you also have to suffer from grain and no-way-focus...?

Push the button, Max !

Fate,
Professor

Raj Sheth
Film Handler

Posts: 13
From: Indiana
Registered: Aug 1999

posted 03-05-2001 02:00 PM

GREAT Movie....although I watched it a second time....was it me or was the "dream sequence" in the midle of the film just too long. Still a great show.....

Christopher Barahona
Film Handler

Posts: 19
From: North Conway, NH, USA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 03-06-2001 10:14 AM

After years of watching martial arts films where the camera shot the action from a fixed camera position with little or no movement, a director has finally had the sense, intuition and talent to film the subject matter with as much grace and beauty as action taking place. One of the best and innovative movies to be released in the last decade. Deserves mucho oscars but won't get them because it's not mainstream.

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