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MARTIN GROVE’S FILM FLASHBACK: CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON OPENS 1/12/2001

Titles are one of a movie’s best marketing tools, but no one seemed to know what CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON meant.

The movie, which opened Jan. 12, 2001 via Sony Pictures Classics, was adapted from a novel by Wang Dulu, which was serialized in China from 1941-42. Set in 19th Century Imperial China, its two master warriors (Chow Yun-Fat & Michelle Yeoh) are grappling with China’s cherished Green Destiny sword having fallen into the hands of a mysterious thief (Ziyi Zhang).

Some explanations of the title are as difficult to understand as the title, itself. One says it’s from an ancient Chinese poem where “behind the rock in the dark probably hides a tiger, and the coiling giant root resembles a crouching dragon.”

The martial arts film was directed by Ang Lee (LIFE OF PI) and adapted by Hui-ling Wang, James Schamus and Tsai Kuo Jung. DRAGON was considered to be a Taiwanese movie because when it won the Oscar for what was then called Best Foreign Language Film, it was presented to  Taiwan. Actually, the movie was an elaborate international co-production between companies in four countries — China Film Co-Production Corp.  (China), Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, Sony Pictures Classics & Good Machine (all U.S.), Edko Films (Hong Kong) & Zoom Hunt Productions (Taiwan). There also were two other ventures, United China Vision & Asia Union Film & Entertainment, that were created specifically to make DRAGON.

The film’s principal stars all delivered their lines in Mandarin, but with varying accents — Chow Yun-Fat (Cantonese), Michelle Yeoh (Malaysian/ English), Ziyi Zhang (Beijing) & Chang Chen (Taiwanese). That posed problems in some Chinese markets, so all the voices were then dubbed into proper Mandarin. Because Yeoh didn’t actually speak Mandarin, a phonetic script had been prepared for her with the help of Mandarin speaking crew members.

DRAGON, which was subtitled for some international markets, premiered May 18, 2000 as TIGRE ET DRAGON in the global media spotlight at the Cannes Film Festival. It then opened July 7 in Taiwan, July 8 in China & July 13 in Hong Kong. Its U.S. release began Oct. 9 at the NY Film Festival, after which it premiered Dec. 5 in Beverly Hills. It then went into limited release Dec. 8 and expanded wide Jan. 12, 2001.

This slow roll out made the most of its critical acclaim (98% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and also allowed favorable word of mouth to spread. It resulted in ticket sales of $128.5M domestic and $214M worldwide. That made DRAGON the first non-English language film to crack $100M in domestic theatres and the top grossing international production ever in the Mandarin language.