“If we’re not at the right place at exactly the right time, we won’t find our way in.” Dale Cooper. “Twin Peaks” is a classic 1990’s show that not only screams “the ’90s but it also presented a new perspective on murder mystery films for the upcoming era. The show is about the mysterious murder of the popular girl at school. The tragic event shakes every person’s life in the tiny secluded town. Personally I felt as if the show is over-dramatized in so many areas it is hard to watch sometimes. For example the girl’s father finds out she is dead and he squints his eyes, stares into the light, and the barely gleam of teardrops in his eyes resemble is “sorrow.” I find it to be so over-done that it is corny but the mystery of the town and the murder forces you to watch more. For a corny show the first season was a major hit that made for a second season and then a continuation series 20 years later.

This show is unconventional because the plot line is scattered and there is many layers to it. Also there is no clear hero or villain, almost everyone in the town is suspected of something. After reading about how the show inspired and redefined murder mysteries I can definitely draw connections between more modern shows to this one. For example the show Pretty Little Liars has so many similarities in just the first episode. From the population sign, to the popular girl gone missing, to the small town aesthetic, there are so many resembling stylistic elements. For example a post from Medium by Daisy Phillips titled “Who Killed the Pretty Blonde Girl? Exploring Similarities of ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Pretty Little Liars'” explains “Plot devices are not the only things Pretty Little Liars learned from Twin Peaks. Though Twin Peaks heavily veers from reality with its supernatural events, and Pretty Little Liars flirts with the paranormal as well, both series stray from realism in the more mundane aspects of small town life. Both shows are guilty of perpetuating the ‘Shouldn’t We Be in School Right Now?’ trope, which calls out writers for making the lives of their teenage characters far too intense to also include a seven hour school day.” This is a long quote exposes the truth of the two shows both toying with small town superstition and making characters have unrealistic lives; surprisingly this draws the viewer in even more. The rest of the post compares episodes to each other on parallel plot lines and character descriptions. Throughout the show there is a low hum of the typical suspension music in the background making each scene more dramatic than the next. I find whenever I watch films from the ’80s and ’90s and compare them to films that are more current I question what is going on and why the scene the directer put into the film is significant. The director David Lynch and his partner Robert Frost created the “eerie, quirky murder-mystery serial drama” according to an article published July of 1990, just a few months after the show was released in April 8, 1990. Unfortunately in TV shows they can drag out and manipulate the suspense as much as the director wants. Sometimes shows go into patterns of plot lines and tend to rerun themselves. For example in the parallel show Pretty Little Liars the love affairs between the characters ran in a loop to where practically each person dated the other only to find themselves with the ones they loved at the start. Thankfully this show did not do the typical teenage plot.

“After two and a half decades, the fog over the town of Twin Peaks may finally be lifting: The cult series, which ended on a cliffhanger in 1991, is set to return on Sunday” states Hayley Phelan in an article titled “Return to Twin Peaks”.  The show came out 1990 which started the release of some great mystery shows such as “X-Files”, “Law and Order”, “The West Wing”.  This show did influences many other shows making it to be one of the most influential one of its time.

As the movie first begins in a small Chinese village where Li Mu Bai is announced his arrival. He interacts with Yu Shu Lien setting up the entire film. “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” directed by Ang Lee released January 21, 2000 is a martial arts film America fell in love with. From the action to the romance this off-brand “Romeo and Juliet” (as my father cleverly described) makes it the perfect movie to jump into a new era of film. According to an article written by Elvis Mitchell titled “FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW; Actions Fans, Be Prepared For Heart and Feminism” show cases the excitement and impact it had on American culture. For example, “Outrageous plot pile-ons certainly take place in ‘Tiger’ — a practice as ritualistic as having a martial arts master and student square off against each other, also a part of the picture. Fans of the genre will giggle with delight over the canny way Mr. Lee handles the intersections, and audiences new to these films will shudder with excitement.” Before this movie there were classic martial arts movies such as “Fist of Legend” starring Let Li, Iron Monkey starring Donnie Yen, and several movies starring Jackie Chan but none of them had to same touch that Ang Lee put upon “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.” Continuing in the article it acknowledges the martial arts choreographer being Mr. Yuen who is “best known to American audiences for the high-flying fights of ‘The Matrix.'” His signature stunts and Mr. Lee’s directing make for the American audience to fall in love with this movie.

As someone who has watched this film very young it was always a movie that brought my family closer together, even if it meant dealing with wanna-be ninjas afterwards. Personally I have always enjoyed this movie. However the other side of the world did not. Even with the movies $17,000,000 budget it did not impress the Chinese audience. According to an article titled “ARTS ABROAD; Lee’s ‘Tiger’ Celebrated Everywhere But at Home” by Mark Landler states “There’s not enough action in it–it’s boring.” In the article it also mentions Mr. Lee used “kind of a dream China” as his idea for the film. The film only grossed about two million in China but in the US reached $123,078,872. In today’s money the movie would of grossed roughly $60,000,000 more.

“A sword by itself ruins nothing. It only comes alive in skilled hands.” Li Mu Bai. A martial arts film would be another action film but in the skilled hands of Ang Lee it came alive and captivated the American audience. Not only did he create a masterpiece that was different from the rest, he accomplished this by using actors that were not well-known in the martial arts film community. A personal favorite and to many others it is still a classic film that is well-known even 19 years later that has inspired a Netflix original squeal and maybe much more to come.