Yo-Yo Ma - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

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Trackliste LP - 1

Beschreibung

Beschreibung

Though it was made in Taiwan, set in China and written in Mandarin, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is something of a cultural hybrid. The film was the brainchild of a Taiwanese director (Ang Lee) with an impressive Hollywood resume that includes Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm. The screenplay was adapted from a Chinese novel by two Asians and an American and it featured international movie star Chow Yun Fat. Stylistically, the movie drew as much from Hollywood romantic epics as it did from Chinese martial arts dramas. The challenge for the film's composer, Tan Dun, was to score the film with music that would represent its multi-cultural origins and multi-faceted influences. His solution was to blend sweeping Western orchestral music with traditional Chinese instruments like rawap, tar drums and Chinese erhu while using another internationally renowned Asian, cellist Yo Yo Ma, as a sort of bridge between the two styles. Dun's strategy works beautifully in the film; striking perfectly the delicate balance between the exotic and the familiar -- exactly what is required by a script that paints a romanticized fantasy version of ancient China grounded in universal emotional experience. The romantic themes ("The Eternal Vow," "Farewell") are stirring without being manipulative and memorable without being repetitive. Even more impressive are the musical pieces for the film's graceful combat scenes. Unlike most American action films, Crouching Tiger does not swamp the audience in discordant suspense music. And though the warriors do fly across their battlefields like stones skipping lightly across a pond, Dun does not attempt an E.T.-like soaring score. Instead, the action scenes are accompanied by vibrant Chinese rhythms, mercifully abandoning melody altogether. The only false moment on the soundtrack is the grating end credit pop ballad "A Love Before Time," which is performed by Asian American singer CoCo Lee. The song is a transparent attempt to mimic Celine Dion's megahit closer for Titanic, "My Heart Will Go On," and it is an infuriatingly commercial conclusion to a gloriously original film. ~ Evan Cater

Evan Cater

Beschreibung

First released in East Asia in the spring of 2000, acclaimed director Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, a high-class film tribute to the wu sha, or magical sword fighter, genre of martial arts film, became an international hit, even where shown in Mandarin with subtitles. The film was scored by Tan Dun, a Chinese-born composer who lived in the United States and is learned in Western and Chinese music. A significant part of the film takes place in the Western Chinese desert regions, where Tan was sent to work as a boy during the Cultural Revolution and learned the local music, which also finds its way into the score. Tan Dun used highly diverse and complex forces in making this recording, including the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (Western instruments), the Shanghai National Orchestra (ethnic Chinese instruments), and the Shanghai Percussion Ensemble. The prominent cello part is played by international star Yo-Yo Ma, who convincingly realizes the Chinese flavor written into this solo line, particularly in an enchanting duet with the ethnic Chinese violin, the erhu, played by Ma Xiao Hui. Tang Jun Qiao plays two instruments, called the bowu and dizi, Alimjan plays an ethnic instrument of West Chinese origin called the rawap, and the hand drum (another instrument from the region) is played by Kasim. Tan Dun and Jorge Calandrelli's A Love Before Time, the end titles tune, is sung by Hong Kong pop star CoCo Lee and presented, in full, in both English and Mandarin versions. The performances are first rate and excellently recorded. The album makes good listening, though one can complain that cues are not played in their dramatic order, and that some of the most interesting ethnic-style cues from the film are cut out, whereas at fifty minutes the release could certainly have included them.

Joseph Stevenson

Mitwirkende

• Artist: Yo-Yo Ma
• Artist: Tan Dun
• Guest Artist: CoCo Lee