Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016)

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The first Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was released 16 years ago. I think it's a solid film and I enjoyed it quite a bit. There are other swordplay films that I enjoy more than that one, but overall I think it's deserving of its accolades. Now, after watching the trailers for Sword of Destiny, I gathered the impression that this would be a more generic period action movie that's less dramatically effective than its predecessor . . . and that's basically what I got. Over the past few days I've noticed that it has become instantly fashionable to bash on this flick, but I don't think it's as bad as its initial reputation suggests. It has its flaws, but I found it watchable.

For example, it actually looks quite lovely. It's nicely shot and has some impressive locations. The natural environments are captured well and have a bit of a variety; there are pretty forests, mountains, snowy locales, bodies of water, etc. It's nice to look at and looks professionally made. I feel like I need to say this because some people think that Netflix produced this film. I don't think that's true at all, actually. Unless I'm missing something, Netflix is just distributing it in conjunction with its theatrical release.

Unfortunately, the scriptwriting is significantly weak element here. The characters and the story are very generic, which makes this feel like a "by-the-book" genre movie. I almost feel like it's pointless to even discuss the plot in any detail. You have some martial arts masters who take in younger trainees with questionable morals, and some bad guy (who's bad . . . just because) tries to steal a special sword. If you've seen a number of wuxia films, there's nothing new that you're going to see here. The conflicts do not have a lasting dramatic impact, which means that you're basically just waiting for the next action sequence.

But fortunately, there are a number of good fights that are peppered throughout. The director here is Yuen-Woo Ping, who previously directed a bunch of entertaining action films in Hong Kong – a few of which include Iron Monkey (1993), In the Line of Duty 4 (1989), Tiger Cage (1988), and Drunken Master (1978). More recently he's been known for his action choreography in films such as The Matrix trilogy, Kill Bill, and the first Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon film. In terms of action, this guy knows what he's doing. Also, Sword of Destiny has some legitimate action movie stars with Donnie Yen and Michelle Yeoh. So you have some serious talent both in front of and behind the camera here, so the fights are generally good. The best of which involve Donnie Yen on an iced-over pond and Michelle Yeoh in a dark room (fighting a witch). There is use of wires (as expected) and some use of CGI (but not too much). Sometimes it does look a bit cartoony. There's nothing here that will rival the Ip Man films or The Raid films in terms of sheer awesomeness, but I found the action to be generally entertaining. And there was enough of it to make up for its dramatic flaws.

Fmovies: Crouching tiger hidden dragon (part 1) is certainly one of the best martial arts movie ever, due to deep characters , love and emotion, short but extraordinary fighting scenes, beautiful scenery and magnificent music.

With Donnie Yen and Michelle, fantastic 4K scenic pictures and music reminiscent of the first part the sword of destiny had many ingredients to make our expectations high. However what was delivered is just saddening.

The plot is clearly lacking quality failing to elaborate on the different characters and transporting emotions. While we could feel the love and respect between Michelle and Li Mu Bai in part 1 we are completely lacking same in sword of destiny. If a movie is not deep than only action can partially compensate this lack,

Again we get shocked of what we are being presented. Fighting scenes much below capabilities of Donnie Yen and everyone else. For example in the fight scenes of part 1 between Michelle Yeoh and the young Zhang ZhiYi the green sword of destiny is really the matchmaker in a well orchestrated dramatic fight. Going back to the classic *The Sword" with Adam Cheng we find another sample of incredible fight scenes where the sword is making the little difference between the two world best fighters in a culminating dramatic fight. Same movie (The Sword) we find a fantastic elaboration of how a ninja stealth fighter attacks incredibly out of nowhere, bringing our hero into serious trouble. What happened to sword of destiny plot... where the strange lady in red is kind of mimicking this ninja style against Michelle Yeoh. Sword of destiny is so far behind the classic. Also we find much better elaboration of similar fighting style in Azumi 2 ... The makers of Swords of Destiny are clearly not deep into martial arts and deliver zero.

Sword of destiny does not include surprises, no long or convincing fight scenes, no drama... Characters are introduced, fight, die... Without anything appealing to the spectator.

My advice to Netflix: next time do not just hire great actors. Hire the best movie makers. Clearly 14 blades with Donnie Yen is the best martial arts movie of this decade. This is the caliber that should have been delivered and this is the crew that should have made sword of destiny. This movie outperforms with incredible fight scenes not seen before and leaves you crying at the sad end. Sword of destiny delivers none of that.

It was a decently enjoyable movie, i probably would have enjoyed it more if it didn't have the crouching tiger, hidden dragon tag to it (as it raised expectations)

Problems i had with it were that it was rather short, there was almost no character development, the story line was quite clichéd and the fight scenes didn't seem as fluid as the original, the musical score wasn't nearly as impressive as the original either.

I am struggling to find anything about the film that is better than average.

Overall not a bad film, just not something i will watch again, A generous 6/10

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny fmovies. Netflix strikes again! This time they chose to ruin the memory of a the 16 year old classic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with a sequel that shines in being utterly boring. The film is only 100 mins long but it seems to last so much longer. The story is poorly constructed and there so little happening that halfway through the movie I hardly knew what is was about. Something about the titular sword, but it seems so unfocused and aimless. You never have the sense that the story is going anywhere or that the characters have some clear purpose. Also the characters are dull and the dialogue utterly uninspired. They did an effort to make it look good but strangely enough this film looks like a TV movie (well it actually is) that has this strong 'shot in a studio' look (much like War Horse for example). I didn't check the director before watching it but was very surprised Woo-Ping (action choreographer Matrix films) was at the wheel. So the action should at least be good right? Wrong, the fight scenes are slow and dull, not fast and furious. So I would recommend to skip this film entirely, certainly if you liked the original and want to keep your memory of it intact.

I don't know how they could take a masterpiece like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and destroyed it. This sequel has nothing of the first movie except for the title.

Maybe i am too harsh, but Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was an epic movie, with good story line, legendary character in Li My Bai, great chemistry between characters and epic ending. So based on that my expectations for this movie were high. Plus if you put Donnie Yen, and Jason Scott Lee on top of that you would expect nothing less than the previous movie. But, no. In CTHD 2, the story is terrible, the characters are weak, empty and shallow,there is no connection between them, the directing is bad, and the worst part is, it's in English. The only good thing are the fighting scenes and they are average at best.

So to summarize this movie is an average Chinese kung fu movie with some decent action, sword fighting scenes. As a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel its a big disappointment and not worth watching.

Your humble reviewer believes that the destiny of certain very special sequels is not merely to entertain, not merely to make money, but to strike a chord within the viewer that makes you realize how much you enjoyed the original and want to see it again.

So it was that at the halfway point of this movie I decided to go to the Amazon site and order the original CTHD. Only with the perspective of this lop-sided followup can the beauty, the genius, of the original be appreciated.

That said, a lot of top talent try very hard to salvage this title but aside from some amazing fight scenes -- scenes which by themselves are almost worth the price of the ticket -- it just keeps letting you down.

Yen's performance here made me appreciate his restraint in the 3 Ip Man movies even more. And watching the increasingly heavy Jason Scott Lee reminded me that when he first debuted on the scene, he played a very svelte Bruce Lee. And any film with Michelle Yeoh is always worth a look.

Have a glance here, but cherish the original.