I don't really know much about Coco Lee but I have the soundtrack of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. She sings the main song on it in both English and Mandarin and the English version is called "A Love Before Time." The madarin version is really beautiful and though it has some "My Heart Will Go On" (Titanic) tendencies, it is far superior. My theory is that it's because I can't understand how cheesy the lyrics are because of the Mandarin as a second language issues I have.
At the turn of the century North America became infatuated with Chinese kung-fu movies. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was the most popular one. It was nominated for a boatload of Oscars, one was Best Original Song, which was sung live at the Oscars by Coco Lee.
For these Oscars I was watching at a friend's apartment as I attended her annual Oscar party. She had an Oscar pool, which I won. I only got two picks wrong all night, one was Best Original Song. I don't even follow movies and one of the two picks I get wrong is the music one. Go figure.
But the real losers were the voters because I don't know how you can be nominated in a field that included a swan-wearing Bjork, a mumbling inaudible Bob Dylan, and an annual appearance by Randy Newman for whatever movie he scored that year, and not win. Seriously, I think the voters should stick to movies.
Here is Coco Lee performing the English translation of the song "A Love Before Time" at the 2001 Oscars.
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