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Grade: A

Verdict: A gravity-defying marvel that reminds you just how good movies can be.

Details: Starring Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi. Rated PG-13 for martial arts violence and some sexuality. In Mandarin with subtitles. Two hours.

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Review: The older you get, the harder it is to be seduced by a movie--to sit down in a dark theater and feel swept away by alternating waves of adrenalin and emotion. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has that power.

Exhilarating and haunting, fueled with youthful energy but shadowed by mortality, Ang Lee's (literally) high-flying martial arts epic is so good, it reminds you how the best films transport you to another world. A prime Oscar contender, it's almost impossible to classify, with its fusion of art-house elegance and kung fu moves. You could call it a kids' movie for grown-ups, or a grown-up movie for kids. It's also a girl-power chick flick that kicks butt in ways Charlie's Angels can only dream about.

Set in a mythical feudal past, "Tiger" introduces us to Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) as she awaits the return of her old friend, the warrior Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat). She's not your typical movie heroine, passive eye-candy pining for the hero. We soon see that she's as powerful a warrior as Li: About 15 minutes into the movie, with no warning, Shu Lien takes off after a masked thief--running straight up walls and gliding weightless over the rooftops of a sleeping village.

Here, "Crouching Tiger" moves matter of factly into the magical realm established by earlier Hong Kong action flicks. Like them, it fuses mind-blowing fight scenes (choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping, the mastermind behind "The Matrix") with wire work that sends the actors wheeling through the air like Mandarin Peter Pans.

An example of wuxia pian, a genre of Chinese film about wandering knights, "Tiger" has a simple plot. Saddened by his lonely life as a warrior, Li wants to retire his sword, the legendary Green Destiny, because "too many men have died at its edge." Placing it in the custody of an old friend in Beijing, he and Shu Lien meet the governor's daughter, Jen (Zhang Ziyi), who is being groomed for a marriage she doesn't want.

Then, a thief steals Green Destiny. Basically, the rest of the film follows the fate of the sword, as Li and Shu Lien pursue it, searching for the female warrior Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei), who killed Li's old master. Meanwhile, Jen turns out to be much more complex than expected, her past filled in by an extended flashback that comes at the film's halfway point. To tell much more would be a shame.

In its opening, exposition-filled minutes, "Tiger" has an affectionate, hokey tone, bordering on parody. But Lee, working from longtime collaborator James Schamus' screenplay (co-written by Wang Hui Ling and Tsai Kuo Jung), brings extra dimension to familiar genre elements. For all its stunts and breathtaking fights, the movie is underscored by a sense of longing and loss, signaled by the mournful cello refrain of Tan Dun's score.

Even the film's most stunning sequence sustains a meditative tone: A gravity-defying fight between two characters in the deep green branches of a bamboo grove is the most astonishing screen image of the year--maybe several years. But the duel's sword-flashing ferocity is undercut by the gentle swaying of the windblown bamboo stalks. At times, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" feels not only like a high-adrenalin adventure, but also a hushed Buddhist meditation on nature's indifference to human struggle.

That said, "Tiger" is peppered with bits of humor, like the moment midway through a battle when Yeoh grabs a weapon that's just a little too heavy for her. Or the sly explanation by Jen's secret love (Chang Chen) that he couldn't sneak in to see her earlier because of "all the traffic on your rooftop."

Two of China's great screen icons, Chow and Yeoh are ideally cast as an almost-couple, kept apart by noble intentions. As another character says of the two, "When it comes to emotions, even great heroes can be idiots." Yeoh has been doing her own fighting and stuntwork in film for years, most visibly in the States as 007's ally in "Tomorrow Never Dies." Though new to martial arts, Chow underwent two months' training and makes a convincing warrior. After several years of so-so film roles ("Anna and the King," for instance), he's back in peak form as a severe, brooding heartthrob.

Despite the combined star power of the leads, Zhang nearly steals the movie. Only 19 at the time of the filmmaking, she combines little-girl delicacy with a budding, dangerous sexuality. The plot's unpredictable motor, she has to play an emotional arc ranging from extreme arrogance to true sorrow. One of her fight sequences with Yeoh is a high point of the movie; director Lee shoots much of it from above, letting us appreciate the actors' lightning-fast footwork.

For many American moviegoers, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" may feel like a revelation. But longtime Hong Kong action fans, while likely to dig the movie, will recognize that it's really just an elegant, extremely accomplished variation on things they've seen before.

Lee didn't invent this world of honor, mysticism and thwarted passion. "Tiger" pays homage to the Hong Kong martial arts fantasies of the late '80s and early '90s ("A Chinese Ghost Story," "Once Upon a Time in America," "The Bride With White Hair," etc.), as well as the 1960s flicks produced by the Shaw brothers. It's a foreign, art-house film with enough appeal to attract people who swore they'd never read a subtitle. ("Tiger" could well break the American box office record for a foreign film, held by "Life Is Beautiful," which grossed $57.6 million.)

In his film career, Lee has tackled family drama ("The Wedding Banquet," "Eat Drink Man Woman"), American period pieces ("The Ice Storm," set in the 1970s, and "Ride With the Devil," set in the 1860s), and even Jane Austen ("Sense and Sensibility"). "Crouching Tiger" suggests that he can handle virtually any film genre, while giving it his own subtle imprint. From start to finish, his latest is a perfectly judged blend of moods and marvels. It's a tragedy that's also rapturous, soaring high even as it breaks your heart.

— Steve Murray, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution