Yes, that's a proper nit to pick. Certainly Shu Lien knows that she loves Mu Bai, and that Mu Bai loves her. However, I got the firm impression that Mu Bai is much more oblivious -- he certainly knows he loves Shu Lien (or at the very least that those annoying stirrings he gets in his loins are interfering with his path to enlightenment, dammit). However, I was not at all sure that he realized that Shu Lien loved him.
To my mind, part of the drama of the film is that Mu Bai is in some senses an immensely capable and powerful character, but in other senses is so completely incompetent that he brings tragedy to all those around him. In this reading, it's not at all out of line to suggest that he remains blissfully ignorant of Shu Lien's feelings towards him, and only begins to realize them during the film (and, indeed, that's part of what the film is about).
At any rate, I don't think there's much to argue with the fact that it's his feelings for Shu Lien that stand in the way of his illumination, and not the theft of the Green Destiny (although I'm perfectly willing to agree that the uptight Mu Bai is transferring his anxiety onto the Sword, and trying to convince himself that the disposition of the Sword is what's really causing his tummy aches).
Further discussion of CTHD should probably go off list... (right, Jeff? 8)).
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Viktor Haag : Software & Information Design : Research In Motion
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