Released: February 2016
Director: Yuen Woo-Ping
Rated PG-13
Run Time: 96 Minutes
Genre: Action, Martial Arts
Distributor: Netflix
Cast:
Donnie Yen: Silent Wolf
Michelle Yeoh: Yu Shu Lien
Jason Scott Lee: Hades Dai
Harry Shum, Jr.: Wei Fang
Natasha Liu Bordizzo: Snow Vase
16 years ago, I got my first taste of the Wuxia(martial hero) film genre in the movie called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The film was directed by then-unknown Ang Lee and starred Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, and Zhang Ziyi. For American audiences, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a revelation. We hadn’t seen a movie quite like this before, even though China has. The film won FOUR Academy Awards: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Score. It’s easy to see why. From a visual standpoint, it was a stunning film, with incredibly beautiful backdrops and sets. It also had some amazing acting, with Chow Yun-Fat in the lead as Li Mu Bai. The story was intricate and intimate on multiple occasions while also being incredibly epic. The fight choreography by Yuen Woo-Ping was astounding, featuring some of the best sword-fighting I’ve ever seen in any movie. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon remains one of my favorite martial arts movies ever, and I will go to the grave defending it. 16 years later, we get an official sequel titled, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny. That has to be one of the longest movie names ever. How does it fare against the original film? Not very well, I’m afraid.
The film opens as martial arts expert Yu Shu Lien is returning home from abroad when she’s suddenly attacked by a group of masked thugs. Aided by a mysterious stranger, she repels the attack and continues her journey. Meanwhile, evil warlord Hades Dai is plotting to overthrow Peking. His desire for conquest gets stronger when he’s informed a powerful weapon that he could use to achieve his goals: The Green Destiny, wielded by master Li Mu Bai, who died years ago. After arriving at the house of the person that she’s defending, she meets a young woman who takes an interest in the Green Destiny, and asks Lien to train her. Before long, they come under attack by Hades’ thugs and Lien sends for help. Responding, a mysterious warrior named Silent Wolf and a handful of other fighters take up the call. It is soon revealed that Silent Wolf was the husband that Lien thought had died many years ago, which complicates things. This movie works best when it focuses on certain characters like Lien, Silent Wolf and Snow Vase. Their backstories are incredibly interesting and actually add some emotional weight to the goings-on. The problem is that those stories are set inside of your basic and generic “fight against an evil warlord and his army” kind of story. It’s something that’s been done a million times before and quite frankly, done better. Most of the characters really aren’t that interesting or compelling, outside of maybe four or five. The overall story is not really that compelling while hitting every single cliche in the kung-fu movie book.
The first thing that you’ll notice in Sword of Destiny, is that the entire film is done in English. I’m not talking English dubbing, which would’ve been worse. Everybody in the film is speaking in English, despite the fact that the film is set in China. Ultimately, that actually works against the film in a number of ways. One: The idea of speaking English in a movie like this, especially where and WHEN it is set, is extremely ludicrous. Two: Some of the actors struggle with the English language, as it is not their first language. Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen, fare better than most. I understand that when the movie was announced, the filmmakers weren’t sure that Western audiences were willing to read subtitles, so they did the entire movie in English. I get that most Westerners have short attention spans and would rather not read subtitles while watching a movie. In my honest opinion, you get better performances when actors are allowed to speak in their native languages. Yeah, you have to have subtitles if you don’t speak Mandarin or Cantonese, but it really isn’t that distracting. Not if you buy into their performances, which are all over the board here. You’ve got good performances from Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen, Harry Shum, Jr, and Jason Scott Lee, but nearly everybody else is just…meh. That’s two more strikes against the film.
However, from a visual standpoint, this is actually a very beautifully shot movie. Like the first Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, there are shots that are simply gorgeous, even if they do use green-screen techniques. It’s well-shot, and well-staged. The fights are probably the best parts of the film. They’re certainly wild and feature a lot of wire-work, but in a movie like this, I can let it slide. Yuen Woo-Ping’s experience as a film fight choreographer serves him well here. Some of the fights are very interesting and staged exceptionally well. Donnie Yen is simply spectacular, especially during a night fight on a frozen lake. That was very cool. I loved that actually, and the final fight on and around a tower was pretty awesome as well. So, the fighting is really good. Woo-Ping pulls double-duty, not only as the film’s director, but also the fight choreographer. Had it been anybody else, I think they would have needed somebody else to either direct or the fight scenes. Woo-Ping is an exceptionally talented film-maker, but when you try to make an Americanized sequel to a very beloved film, certain things just aren’t going to be as good.
Ultimately, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny fails because it doesn’t follow-up on the themes and ideas that were present in the first film. The entire film is also done in the English language which ruins the authenticity of the film, and is surprisingly cheesy. The original film took itself seriously enough to be a drama first and foremost, with the fights taking a back seat to character development and story. Here, the characters and story get pushed to the side while the fights take over. Sword of Destiny feels cheap when compared to the original film. So, my final score for the film is going to be a 6.5/10. It’s mostly forgettable. I don’t hate the movie, but I think it could’ve been done better, or not at all. It doesn’t do enough to justify its existence. It’s worth watching at least once, but no more than that.