In the year 2000, there was a phenomenon. It was called Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Bursting into theaters, winning money and fans, it earned its place as the highest-grossing foreign film of all time. Originally, it opened up only on a few screens and then spread to screens nationwide months after its first American release. The success of this film, however, may only lead to second-rate knockoffs in the future.

When critics first picked Crouching Tiger to gross in the top 10 opening day movie releases in its monthly predictions, Pat O' Brian from Access Hollywood said between chuckles, "I doubt it." In its first-week run, only few art house theaters played the film, yet still the show managed to squeak itself into the No. 9 opening spot. When critics began to applaud and audiences demonstrated their willingness to try a martial arts action movie, theaters opened everywhere and the film rose to the No. 5 spot. Weeks and then months after its release, when most films had stopped grossing, it still remained as a top five box office draw. Subsequently, Pat O'Brien invited Michelle Yeoh, a main character from the film, to an interview to discuss its success. At its close, the motion picture broke the blockbuster mark by having drawn in $127.4 million. On its North American DVD release date, an estimated 1.5 million copies of Crouching Tiger flew off retail shelves. After garnering praise and capturing four Academy Awards, Zhang Ziyi's catapult to fame, and Ang Lee's celebrity, Crouching Tiger was acknowledged as a commercial triumph for Asian films.

Now, two years later, a prequel is in discussion for release in 2003. Other high-kicking, aerial flying action films are already on their way to post-production. A foreign film in a similar wuxia style entitled Hero, co-staring Zhang Ziyi from Crouching Tiger, has been purchased for world-wide distribution by Miramax, who has said that they are happy to support the promotion of Eastern culture.

The cautious nature of the movie industry is a curious thing. Few theaters took a risk to show Crouching Tiger at the peril of losing money because it was a largely unprecedented act; the film was after all very Mandarin. Many people doubted that a film with so much ethnicity behind it could garner a real money-making audience, despite unmatched critical acclaim.

This attitude towards Asian actors and films began years ago. From the very beginning, during the silent film epoch to the 1960s, few Asian minorities made it onto the big screen. Even fewer still played greater roles than servants or conquered third world prisoners of war. Non-Asians usually played Asians in major roles: Yul Brener as the King of Siam in the King and I, Marlon Brando as Sakini in Teahouse of August Moon. Decades later, in the 1970s, when Bruce Lee came up with the concept of a television show about a Shaolin Priest on what later became a hit series, albeit cheesely-named, Kung Fu: The Legend, he was not cast. The reasoning was he was "too Chinese" to play Chinese. The role was turned over to someone who could portray a Chinese character. In the 1980s, ethnic minorities started to win roles on screen, but usually in minor roles and they were either the evil character or the first to die if they were on the good guy side. Right or wrong, movie producers followed the trend in film production from the past.

Largely, movie producers are treating Crouching Tiger as an Asian success, as Miramax admitted in its public statement. However, a lot of people, the consumers, who have seen Crouching Tiger, see it as simply a good movie. Producers seem to care only about trends: what has been done in the past. Movie statisticians try to predict hot fads of the moment. They pick out superficial characteristics of films, such as the number of Asians per picture or the amount of Asian-ness in the film, instead of focusing on getting films with higher quality script-writing, casting, acting and direction. If they would focus more on writing and storyline, there would probably be better movies out there instead of just a flood of typecast copies.

I liked Crouching Tiger and I sincerely hope its success does not lead to an inundation of cheap B-grade karate rip-offs.