Per iMDb:

Hero is 7.9/10 out of 180k ratings.

House of Flying Daggers is 7.5/10 out of 112k ratings.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is 7.9/10 out of 266k ratings.

These 3 movies form a sort of holy trinity of early-2000s commercially successful big-budget wuxia films and they fucking SUCK.

All 3 of these movies had fantastic production quality, there's massive setpieces, great photography, I would even go so far as to call them beautiful at times. They all got great reviews on release from western audiences, but it's like graphichounds reviewing the latest Call of Duty: cutting-edge visuals with nothing in terms of substance.

The stories are all forgettable, the characters are often dumb beyond belief, but by far the worst offense is their popular portrayal as "martial arts movies", insisting that while other martial arts movies may suck, these movies bring some level credibility to the genre because they look pretty and have some saccharine subplot where a geisha weeps about having an arranged marriage or some shit.

Whereas I'm left completely sense-deprived because there's barely any action to speak of, and when there is action, it's some of the most FUCKAWFUL OBVIOUS WIRE-FU IN THE WORLD. I need brain-bleach because to this day I still cannot unsee those horrendous superman jumps Michelle Yeoh does in Crouching Tiger. It's the fakest-looking shit in the whole world, and this is the same caliber of stunt effects that I laugh at in movies like Dragon Tiger Gate, which still has way more and way better choreographed and shot fight scenes (gaze upon this masterpiece).

And I have nothing against Michelle Yeoh, she was great in Wing Chun, which is a movie that NOBODY has seen. It's got barely 3k reviews on iMDb, it's rated lower than these three, and yet it's an infinitely higher quality martial arts movie. MORE fight scenes, BETTER fight scenes, more CREATIVE fight scenes, that's what martial arts movies are all about! In fact I'd take literally any movie, sight unseen, directed by Yuen Woo-Ping over this wuxia subgenre of crap, because I know HE can direct a interesting goddamn martial arts fight.

He wasn't just the choreography guy for The Matrix, he made the original Drunken Master with Jackie Chan, which spawned a sequel featuring what may be the greatest martial arts fight scene ever made. In fact, most of Jackie Chan's filmography puts these movies to shame, he literally popularized the concept of improvizational prop-fighting, but when these movies came out he was known for what? Rush Hour and Rumble in the Bronx? He's starred in and directed so many other good movies besides those!

There was Ong Bak and The Protector around this time which features an incredible long take fight scene reminiscent of John Woo's Hard-Boiled hospital shootout, Jeeja Yanin debuted shortly after this, and overall, Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen, and Jet Li have all been in far better, lesser known, martial arts movies. Even the relatively few movies of Bruce Lee are better representative of what the genre has to offer.

I don't think the film critics who scored Hero, House, and Hidden Dragon so highly give a shit about the martial arts portrayed in these movies, it's just an exotic oriental setting, a pretty picture, and some empty platitudes to make them feel all cultured.

Watch some fuckin' good shit. Martial arts movies are for watching dudes get put through tables in spectacular fashion, they're for seeing someone clear a room of baddies with something that isn't even a weapon, I want that power fantasy and that thrill that comes from seeing the sort of stunts that break an actor's collarbone, and the level of clownshoes comedy gold that can only come from the legendarily bad writing and localization some of these films received.

At least I can get a laugh out of it, rather than it being an extremely expensive attempt to put me to sleep.