Mr. Rosenbaum,
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
More than one critic has touched on the apparent Matrix influence on the film, and one critic, I believe at the Village Voice, mentioned that CT, HD served to irrefutably exemplify the international influence of The Matrix since its fight scenes are Matrix-esque. What all these people are forgetting is that (a) the fight scenes have been choreographed by the same man who did them in The Matrix, and it wouldn’t be right to say that a man influenced himself, exactly, and (b) this very same man was himself influenced by countless Hong Kong pictures–the same pictures that Ang Lee set out to emulate and homage–all of which came long before The Matrix.
I guess my main problem is I am tired of films like The Matrix being labeled as something terribly new and original but really it’s just that they are popular, somehow. I enjoyed it, but The Matrix did very little that was truly original. What’s going on?
