After watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon again, I started thinking. One, for all the fantastic elements in the fight scenes, there were at least a couple pretty realistic things that I noticed this time around: a quick close-up of the result of Sanchin conditioning (re: Okinawan martial arts, so I assume it's also in the Chinese somewhere), where Zhiyi's character almost breaks Yeoh's character's wrist with nothing but her belly, and this wonderful sequence where Chow Yun Fat's character just keeps sidestepping ever so slightly on 45's and riposting, all the while lecturing his opponent (focus on the angles there, but the rest made it really cool).
      The second bit are questions I had near the end of the movie; namely, if Chow Yun Fat's character is a Boddhisatva, or someone on the verge of enlightenment who postpones it to help others, he's certainly a complicated one. For one, (bracketed by the context of the story) is he postponing his enlightenment to help the young, morally conflicted noble girl, or because of his unconsummated love for his Yeoh's character? While it seems that in order to share that love his enlightenment is permanently forestalled, is he actually still a Boddhisvata who is remaining behind to help ("I would rather be a ghost wandering at your side..."), or has he renounced his efforts in that regard for love, which might just be a different kind of nirvana?

The Constant Gardener, with Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes. Well, for one this makes me want to see City of God (by the same director) even more. I adored Weisz's acting as usual, even when I was actively disliking her character, and Fiennes performed admirably in acting the character development that I specifically went to the movie to see. The cinematographic details, acting (even in body language, always a plus) and plot (which was pleasantly complicated) all fit together quite nicely, with parallels complete and details returned to in surprising ways.
      I also thought the movie was interesting in that it seems to use a similar story-archetype to my favorite novel, Evolution's Shore, even to the point of similar details (tart, somewhat idealistic UK girl, Kenya, uncovering plots by big political players), but unlike the novel, here the female character development is played out in the background, as it were (in flashbacks) whereas the male character's development (which took place somewhat off-stage in the novel) is primary; I only split it by sexes because of the similarity between the given characters, mind. Where the novel is science fiction and the movie is more realistic is the splitting point I think in terms of how the role of disease is played out, with the former turning it into an creator of potential, and the latter placing it in a more overtly economical role - but, I think there is a parallel there nonetheless, just that it's a complex one that hopefully will bear further meaning for both if I can figure it out.
      And I really wonder whether Evolution's Shore might be used as an elucidating comparison to the real-life work of Wangari Maathai, in how integration with the environment plays such a positive role for Kenya in the novel, or whether Maathai's words and work might be used to pull further meaning from the novel based on her real experience.