It’s easy to forget that Wire Fu has been around in Hong Kong cinema for well over 30 years.

It’s now commonplace in Western movies thanks to its popularisation in movies such as The Matrix and Kill Bill, where its use of wires and cranes allowed actors to perform gravity-defying action sequences.

But one of the first films to expose the graceful beauty of this balletic film-making technique to a Western audience was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, a Wuxia (a Chinese genre concerned with martial arts set in ancient China) masterpiece.

Two warrior masters, Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat)are both looking to leave their violent pasts behind and retire.

But they are thrust back into action when the fabled Green Destiny Sword is stolen by a young upstart (Zhang Ziyi), an aristocratic girl arranged to be married but with a deeply romantic past and martial arts skills of her own.

What sets the film apart from films in the same genre isn’t so much the action which is beautifully choreographed, graceful and almost poetic at times – characters floating over rooftops, dancing across still ponds leaving only ripples, alighting on tree branches which sway gently under their weight - but its focus on the dramatic back stories and the interpersonal relationships of its characters.

It’s got far more going for it than your average chop-socky kung fu flick; performances from Chow Yun Fat, and Michelle Yeoh are almost hypnotic in their focus, director Ang Lee bringing out the very best in both of them.

It’s been dubbed “Sense and Sensibility with martial arts” and to a large part that holds true.

Eighteenth century China was a socially repressed time and so much is communicated by unspoken action – eye contact, glances, slight changes in facial expression.

It’s the tranquil peace and subtlety that is the heart of the film.

The majestic cinematography by Peter Pau, framing the action against epic misty mountain backdrops, vast deserts and lush verdant forests and the haunting cello score by Tan Dun makes this a feast for the senses, greatly magnified by the quality of the Blu-ray edition.

Other films have been made in this genre since (notably House of Flying daggers and the even more ambitious Hero), but they owe their success largely to this film, which paved the way for mainstream Western audience consumption.

For that reason alone it’s worth seeing if you haven’t already or revisiting if you have.

Make sure you watch the subtitled Chinese version though, the English dub doesn’t quite do it justice.

Extras: Decent if unremarkable extras include a director and producer commentary, a “making of” featurette which reveals a little more about the Wire Fu techniques used in the film and an interview with Michelle Yeoh.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (PG-13) is available on Blu-ray now