Movies: remembering "Crouching Tiger's" spring to success

fter marking his arrival in Hollywood with a string of English-language films, includingSense and Sensibility (1995), The Ice Storm (1997) and Ride with the Devil (1999), the Taiwanese film director Ang Lee decided to return to his roots for his next picture, which he intended largely for Chinese-language audiences. Ironically, the result--Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon--would become by far his biggest hit to date. On February 13, 2001, the film earned 10 Oscar nominations, becoming the first Asian film and only the seventh foreign-language offering to get a nod for Best Picture.

Based on the traditional Chinese martial-arts genre known as wuxia, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon starred Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh as warriors in 19th-century China, during the Qing dynasty. Kept apart by honor, the two yearn for each other even as they become involved with a heated drama surrounding two younger lovers, played by Zhang Ziyi and Chang Chen. Aside from the touching love story at its center, the film boasted incredibly beautiful scenery, haunting music and--last but by no means least--elaborate battle sequences, with fighters flying through the air and performing other impossibly acrobatic feats. The film’s fight choreography was by Yuen Wo-Ping, who directed the action sequences in the blockbuster hit The Matrix (1999).

In addition to the heaps of critical praise and awards--including a Golden Globe Award for Best Director for Lee, an Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film and three more Oscars in technical categories--Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was an unqualified hit at the box office. After first gaining notice on the film festival circuit, it was released in December 2000 on six screens in New York City. Encouraged by its success, the film’s distributor, Sony Picture Classics, widened its release, and it was eventually shown on some 1,200 screens throughout the country. Raking in more than $60 million at the U.S. box office (as well as $100 million worldwide), Crouching Tiger became the highest-grossing foreign-language film in American history, surpassing Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful to claim the distinction.

"Butler" "Wolf" hit Golden Globes snub

Biggest surprises include Daniel Bruhl and Idris Elba

This year’s Golden Globe nominations were unveiled Thursday and the omissions of Oprah Winfrey, Martin Scorsese and Forest Whitaker from the list of contenders represent the awards’ biggest snubs, according to a Fandango survey of moviegoers.

There were happy surprises in addition to nasty shocks, the online ticketer reports. Among the inclusions that moviegoers hadn’t expected, but were pleased to see were Best Supporting Actor nods to “Captain Phillips”s’ Barkhad Abdi and “Rush”s’ Daniel Bruhl, as well as a Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama nomination for Idris Elba in “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.”

“Barkhad Abdi must be pinching himself to get a Globe nod over the likes of George Clooney, Harrison Ford, and Tom Hanks for his first film acting job,” Fandango Chief Correspondent Dave Karger toldTheWrap.

See photos: Golden Globes 2013: The Nominees 

Fandango polled more than a thousand moviegoers to get its results.

Winfrey, who was widely expected to make the cut for her work as an alcoholic homemaker in “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” topped the list of snubs, earning 41 percent of the vote. In the second slew, well behind the talk-show icon was Scorsese, who has earned rapturous reviews for directing the high finance bacchanal “The Wolf of Wall Street,” but was passed over this year. He earned 23 percent of the vote.

Other snubs included Whitaker’s upright manservant in “The Butler” (11 percent), Tom Hanks’ channeling of Walt Disney in “Saving Mr. Banks” (10 percent) and the late James Gandolfini’s performance as a sweet-natured divorced dad in “Enough Said” (9 percent). Hanks could at least content himself with the Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama nomination he earned for “Captain Phillips,” which should ease the sting from being overlooked.

Abdi, who scored a Globe nod for his debut role as a Somali pirate, was the happiest surprise for 24 percent of voters, followed by Elba, whose nomination for his work as the anti-apartheid icon, was the choice of 22 percent of voters. Bruhl’s arrogant race car driver earned 21 percent of the vote, followed by “Before Midnight”s’ Julie Delpy with 15 percent and “Frances Ha’s” Greta Gerwig with eight percent.

The poll is tied to the launch of the second season of Fandango’s original video series,“Frontrunners,” which features Karger interviewing top awards contenders such as “12 Years a Slave” stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong’o, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” star and director Ben Stiller and “Fruitvale Station” star Octavia Spencer.