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50 free Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon took a 1940s wuxia serial, four stars who spoke Mandarin with four different accents and a $17 million budget, and turned them into the first non-English-language film to gross $100 million in America. It earned ten Oscar nominations, a record for a foreign-language film that stood for nearly two decades, and sent a generation of Western viewers to discover Hero and House of Flying Daggers. This quiz covers the story of Li Mu Bai, Yu Shu Lien, the rebellious Jen and the stolen Green Destiny sword, from the rooftop chase to the bamboo forest to the leap into the mist. It also covers the making of it: the star who turned down the lead, the first choice for Jen, the 28 takes on day one, the composer and cellist behind the score, the fight choreographer who later directed the sequel, and the poem that gave the film its title. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. The easy tier is for anyone who has seen it; the expert tier is for people who read the credits.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?
Ang Lee
It was his first film shot in mainland China; he worked 15-hour days for eight months and said he nearly had a stroke.
Q 02In which year was the film released?
2000
It premiered at Cannes in May and opened in just 16 US cinemas that December before going wide in January 2001.
Q 03Who plays the retiring swordsman Li Mu Bai?
Chow Yun-fat
A native Cantonese speaker, he struggled with the Mandarin dialogue on set.
Q 04Who plays Yu Shu Lien?
Michelle Yeoh
She was the only original star to return for the 2016 sequel.
Q 05What is the name of the treasured sword that is stolen?
Green Destiny
A 400-year-old jian that Mu Bai wants to give away when he retires from the sword.
Q 06The film's dialogue is in which language?
Mandarin
Lee, who was educated in the West, personally edited the English subtitles.
Q 07Who plays Jen Yu, the governor's daughter?
Zhang Ziyi
It was her breakthrough; she later refused the sequel unless Lee directed it.
Q 08Li Mu Bai pursues Jen into which setting for their famous duel?
Bamboo forest
Lee said the only computer work was removing the wires: 'That's really them in the trees.'
Q 09The film belongs to which Chinese martial-arts genre?
Wuxia
Its success introduced the genre to Western audiences and is credited with the marketing of Hero and House of Flying Daggers.
Q 10Who is the villainess who killed Mu Bai's teacher?
Jade Fox
She has been hiding for years as Jen's governess in Governor Yu's household.
Q 11What is the name of the desert bandit Jen loves?
Lo
Nicknamed Dark Cloud, he stole her comb in the desert and she chased him to his cave to get it back.
Q 12What does Jen do in the film's final scene?
Leaps from a mountain bridge
It echoes Lo's legend of a man who jumped from a mountain and, because his heart was pure, flew away unharmed.
Q 13Li Mu Bai is a swordsman of which martial school?
Wudang
Its secret manual is what the villainess killed for and what Jen secretly mastered.
Q 14The film is set in 1778 under which Chinese dynasty?
Q 21It was the first non-English-language film to pass what US box-office milestone?
$100 million
It finished at $128 million domestically over a 31-week run.
Q 22Who composed the score?
Tan Dun
The whole score was produced in two weeks, and he later reworked it as a cello concerto.
Q 23Which cellist plays the solo passages in the score?
Yo-Yo Ma
The score won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Q 24Which streaming service distributed the 2016 sequel in the West?
Qing
The date is never spoken aloud; it appears only on documents seen on screen.
Q 15What was the title of the 2016 sequel?
Sword of Destiny
Unlike the original it was shot in English and, in the West, went straight to Netflix.
Q 16The Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film was presented to which territory?
Taiwan
In truth it was a co-production across China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States.
Q 17How many Academy Award nominations did the film receive?
10
A record for a non-English-language film until Roma tied it in 2018.
Q 18How is Li Mu Bai fatally wounded?
A poisoned needle
Jen rushes off to make an antidote; he uses his last breath to confess his love for Shu Lien.
Q 19Mu Bai sends his sword to Sir Te in which city?
Beijing
It is stolen from Sir Te's compound that very night, prompting the rooftop chase.
Q 20How many Oscars did the film win?
4
Foreign Language Film, Art Direction, Original Score and Cinematography; it lost Best Picture to Gladiator.
Netflix
It was one of Netflix's first original feature films.
Q 25Yeoh grew up speaking English and Malay in which country?
Malaysia
She learned her Mandarin lines phonetically; Chinese-speaking audiences noticed.
Q 26What does Yu Shu Lien do for a living?
Runs a private security company
She and Mu Bai have loved each other for years without saying so, out of loyalty to her dead fiancé.
Q 27Whose Hero and House of Flying Daggers rode the wave of its success in the West?
Zhang Yimou
Zhang Ziyi starred in both of those too.
Q 28The film is based on a 1940s novel by which author?
Wang Dulu
It was serialised in a Qingdao newspaper between 1941 and 1942.
Q 29Who plays Lo, the desert bandit?
Chang Chen
The Taiwanese actor's character went on to influence the hero of the Prince of Persia video games.
Q 30At which festival did the film premiere in May 2000?
Cannes
It screened out of competition there, then built its reputation at Toronto and New York.