On Friday, Jan 10, Technicolor hosted an AMPS screening of the much-acclaimed Ang Lee film, ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’. Many thanks to them for a faultless SRD presentation and for the truly excellent spread of food and drink

GOING FOR THE CHOP

London Film Festival screening, co-writer and exec producer James Schamus told of the first few deliveries of rushes to reach him in the US; how they were all close-ups of super-fast foot movements and seemingly impossible to make any sense of. From the sound point of view the job was equally challenging - this was no ordinary footsteps job! Apart from the general flow of the film and clarity of the narrative, the excellence of the picture editing in the fight scenes is hard to overstate. All the details of the strikes, blocks and impacts are shown clearly with wondrous fluidity. Of equal importance and equally impressive is the sound element, especially when you consider the circumstances (discussed later) under which it was created.

The results were never overcooked, always fluid and convincing without cartoonish overkill. Away from the fight scenes the sound design element is also strong but subtle (within the context of a martial arts movie) working alongside a strikingly eclectic music track to great affect. As the fabled sword of Wudan Master, Li Mu Bai, is drawn from its scabbard; as the menacing forces of dark magic quicken; as the two combatants fly though the treetops and as the overblown, grizzly-faced warlord sets himself up for another effortless humiliation by one of our purehearted heroes, the laying and mixing never miss a beat.

Although the crew was largely Chinese, Ang flew out American Production Mixer, Drew Kunin, to handle acquisition. In the event a great deal of the original sound was replaced. This was not due to poor recording but rather because main characters Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-Fat, not being natural Mandarin speakers, found it very difficult to produce Mandarin accents to Ang’ s satisfaction. Well over half of their dialogues were replaced, with the ADR editors working painstakingly under the guidance of interpreters, Betty Tang and Jean Tsein. Indeed Ang often cut together syllables from production sound and one or more loops to create a single word. From the sound editor’s point of view, the results were often far worse than the original, but Ang was

This was the first foreign language film screened by AMPS and happily it was a full house with equal numbers regrettably being turned away. The decision was made to go with the subtitled version, as opposed to the dubbed version. Most agreed it was a good decision with the sound of the Chinese dialogue being an integral part of the sound track.

Though weaned on a diet of fast and furious Hong Kong fight films, Taiwanese-born Ang Lee has demonstrated an extraordinary breadth of directorial talent with films such as the American civil war drama, Ride With The Devil, The Ice Storm, set in New England in the 1970s and, perhaps most famously, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austin’s period drama with Emma Thompson. Tiger is a mythical tale set in early 19th century China and is unusually beautiful to look at, with its spectacular shots of enchanted emerald green forests, silver lakes and vast panoramas of rocky deserts and stark mountain ranges.

The storyline contains all the essential narrative elements of love, honour, betrayal and retribution, plus a generous helping of acrobatic punch-ups. The main protagonists are all superb exponents of Wudan, a spiritually-based martial art founded on the principles of renunciation and self discipline. Hence, the film is also gently laced with timeless pearls of wisdom from the Taoist and Buddhist traditions, concerning the underlying impermanence of corporeal life and how there’s nothing in this world you can hold on to. They didn’t actually mention 35mm, but...

Gifted with supernormal powers, opponents pursue each other up walls, across roofs, over water and through tree tops with astounding ease and grace. When push comes to shove, however, the speed and power of their hands and feet is breathtaking. In reality, the actors are more dancers then fighters, working under the guidance of Yuen Woo-Ping, the world-famous martial arts choreographer also responsible for the fight scenes in The Matrix. If you think you’ve seen it all with Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan, et a!, think again.

To the best of my knowledge all post-production was done in America. At the