This is one of the more famous films Chow Yun-fat has starred in. Originally, Jet Li was supposed to have the main role, but there personal reasons and a scheduling conflict and he couldn't do it. So the role went to Chow Yun-fat instead
Summary
-When a young Chinese warriors steals a sword from a famous sword maker, she escapes and falls in love with a mysterious man and together they embark on a romantic adventure
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-Chow Yun-fat: Li Mu Bai
-Michelle Yeoh: Yu Shu Lien
-Ziyi Zhang: Jen
-Chang Chen: Lo
-Sihung Lung: Sir Te
-Pei-Pei Chang: Jade Fox
-Li Li: May
-Suying Huang: Auntie Wu
-Michelle Yeoh spent a year prior to filming this movie so she could learn to fluently speak Mandarin
-The actors in this film did all of their own stunts. Any wires holding them up were removed digitally
-The title of the film refers to a Chinese mythology quote referencing "hiding your strength from others"
-When Ang Lee approached Michelle Yeoh, he told her this would be like the 1995 film Sense and Sensibility, only with martial arts
-During filming, Michelle Yeoh had torn her ACL and had to be flown to the United States to have it repaired. She returned to filming at different times to film the non-action scenes until her knee had recovered
-The swords and other weapons were made in Taiwan. Ironically, Taiwan is the country Ang Lee was born in and the swordsmith who made the weapons was actually Lee's neighbor in Tainan, Taiwan
-During an interview with TIME Magazine, Chow Yun-fat described speaking in Mandarin as "It's awful". He had to do 28 takes of shooting on just the first day alone because he had great difficulty speaking Mandarin
-All four of the main stars of the film spoke Mandarin with different accents. Chow Yun-fat spoke it with a Cantonese accent, because Cantonese is his primary language. Michelle Yeoh spoke it with a Malaysian / English accent, Ziyi Zhang spoke it with a Beijing accent and Chang Chen spoke it with a Taiwanese accent
-In the opening scene showing Ziyi Zhang, the embroidered dress she wore took two months to make. It required four highly skilled embroiderers
-The action choreographer on this film is Yuen Woo-ping, who is responsible for choreographing the fight scenes and is also responsible for the choreography in the 1999 film The Matrix and its follow-ups
-While it appears that Ziyi Zhang's character is highly skilled in performing martial arts, in real life she had never undergone any formal studies of martial arts. She used dance techniques to learn her moves as if they were a dance instead of a fight
-As part of her training, Ziyi Zhang also learned calligraphy
-Chow Yun-fat was shown a mockup of what he would look like with a shaved head before he agreed to cut his hair down to the scalp
-The scenes filmed in the Gobi Desert were interrupted by rain constantly
-Jet Li was originally offered the role of Li Mu Bai, but had made a strict promise to his wife Nina Li Chi that he would be with her through the pregnancy of their first child
-This is the first martial arts film for Chow Yun-fat
-Director Ang Lee found the intensity and stress of this movie to be so high he had once again resumed smoking
-Michelle Yeoh didn't speak Mandarin at all. Chow Yun-fat speaks it, but his primary language is Cantonese. Yeoh had to have help from Mandarin-speaking crew members phonetically. Her Malaysian accent can be heard throughout the film. Native Mandarin speakers thought Chow Yun-fat's accent was overdone and strained
-Jet Li was offered the role of Li Mu Bai, but instead he chose to appear in the 2000 film Romeo Must Die instead. Hong Kong singer / actor Leon Lai was offered the role, but turned it down. Finally it was offered to Chow Yun-fat, who accepted it
-Ironically, the film was released in the year 2000, which, in Chinese astrology, is the Year of the Dragon
-For the English language dub, there was extra care taken to ensure that the voice actors' roles and wording matched the original lip movements almost exactly
