by John Fusco (screenplay), Du Lu Wang (book)
Netflix
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny is the sequel (….I guess) of the 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a classic that introduced a lot of Western audiences to wuxia film. Sword of Destiny stars Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen, Jason Scott Lee, Harry Shum Jr. and Natasha Liu Bordizzo, and is directed by Woo-Ping Yuen, who is no Ang Lee.
Here’s the summary from Netflix: Renowned warrior Yu Shu-Lien comes out of retirement to keep the legendary Green Destiny sword away from the villainous warlord Hades Dai.
Carrie and I have Some Thoughts. They’re a lot longer than the summary.
RHG: Well, that was a thing that happened.
Note to The Bitchery: I watched this on Netflix, at home, in my PJs. Carrie saw this in the theater in IMAX. Neither of us had alcohol.
I feel like this is the sequel that I thought I wanted, and then it happened, and I went… no, I didn’t want that.
CarrieS: I enjoyed this movie much more than most people did, and I suspect there were two factors at work. One was that I haven’t seen Crouching Tiger in a long time, so I was less interested in how the sequel worked in comparison and more interested in whether it was a fun stand-alone movie. I think it’s somewhat doomed because a lot of the impact of the first movie came from it’s novelty. Most American audiences had never seen a wuxia film or all that wirework – remember how fucking amazing that was the first time you saw people flying over rooftops like that? You can only show people wirework for the first time once, so the novelty factor is over, and I was willing to allow for that.
The other factor is that I saw it in IMAX 3D. Let me tell you, that format covers up a multitude of sins. I was so busy watching stuff fly around the movie theater that I barely noticed that there was an actual movie. The sound and dubbing issues that bedeviled Netflix watchers weren’t as obvious either. As spectacle, it was truly lovely and exciting. I haven’t heard good things about the movie from anyone who saw it on Netflix, and I suspect the smaller screen invited a more intimate, detailed viewing of the story, which is basically an excuse for a lot of jumping around.
I loved the movie, I had a total blast, and I think it’s underrated – but it definitely doesn’t have the novelty or emotional punch of the first movie.
RHG: I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the theater, and it BLEW MY MIND. Completely, utterly fucking blew my mind. I’ve seen a number of wuxia movies since (Curse of the Golden Flower? Y’all, if you haven’t seen that glorious, shiny, GORGEOUS mess of a family reunion, change that RIGHT NOW. NOW. Go. We’ll be right here when you get back.) The fact is that you can’t hinge a whole movie on pretty fight scenes. God knows one can try, but what made CTHD the groundbreaker it was is the plot doesn’t hinge on the fighting so much. It’s about relationships and love and loss and GETTING THE DAMN WORDS OUT, Li Mu Bai. (Asshole, you get to make your declaration of love and then die, and Shu Lien has to LIVE with it.) (I watched the first one Thursday night in preparation, and it’s still as mind blowing as it was that cold night in the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis.)
This was…the fighting was glorious. It would be, since the director was the fight choreographer for the first movie, but it had very little heart. (Also, you could tell when the fighting was CGI and not wire-work, and that’s just sad.)
OH RIGHT AND THE DUBBING. Or lack thereof. I always watch CTHD in Chinese- I stumbled on the English dub on cable once, and the translation was just NOT GOOD. On Netflix, I dutifully changed the language to Chinese, and the lipsync was so bad, and IT WASN’T MICHELLE YEOH’S VOICE. I know her voice. I know her voice while speaking in Chinese. I paused and googled to see what the fuck was happening, and that’s when I discovered that they shot the movie in English.
This was a movie, but it wasn’t a CTHD movie.
CarrieS: I would give CTHD an A+, and this movie a solid B. That’s because I did feel intense emotional impact from CTHD (aside form the novelty factor which was HUGE for me). In this movie, I cared enormously about the army of four, Yu Shu Lien, and Snow Vase. I didn’t care about the dudes at all, which made it hard to care about the romance. However, I have been so sad about CTHD for so long that I was thrilled for Yu Shu Lien to finally be happy. I also liked the messages about choice and autonomy (“You made your choice; now I make mine”).
My favorite thing about the movie was how many women were in it as fighters, and the fact that their gender was not seen as an issue that affected their desire to fight or ability to fight. The very casualness of their inclusion was powerfully feminist.
RHG: I didn’t hate every minute of it. I liked Snow Vase, and it was nice to see Harry Shum Jr. (aka one of the handful good things to come out of Glee) expanding his repertoire.
The boy is a dancer, and I’m not sure how much martial arts training he’s had, but the similarities between martial arts and dance are SO HUGE (true fact: my first tai chi class, I had to do the form along with everyone, and I was keeping up as best I could, and after we were done, Sifu came over asked what I had studied. “Tae kwon do.” And he nodded and said, “And what else?” “…ballet?” and he went “ah” like that explained everything. Which, it did). Anyway, I want Harry to get lots of work so I can admire him.
I have no beef with the casting at all. It’s always nice to see Boston-boy Donnie Yen, and Jason Scott Lee, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo is a DELIGHT and god I hope she gets lots of work, too.
I mean, it started off with kids trying to steal the Green Destiny- again- and a night fight flying around Sir Te’s compound (and Shu Lien all but saying “What is with these FUCKING KIDS AND THIS SWORD”), and breaking a tavern with a fight, and it was just so derivative. Like, if it wasn’t positioning itself as a Crouching Tiger movie, it would have been fine. But it did, so that’s the mark you have to live up to.
CarrieS: First of all, I thought there were great similarities between Shu Lien and Agent Scully, neither whom can BELIEVE that they’ve gotten roped into the shit again. So now I want a Yeoh/Anderson movie.
RHG: I WANT THAT. (Sorry, go on)
CarrieS: The tavern scene is actually a pretty interesting subversion of the one in CTHD. In CTHD, Jen Yu is at a tavern when some guys pick a fight with her. She beats up the first guy, problem solved. But then she goes out of her way to provoke the big group fight that brings the tavern down, bragging all the while. It’s both super cool (she’s so joyful) and a sign that’s she’s completely self-centered (my daughter, slightly horrified, said, “I hope she’s going to pay to fix all that!”) But Jen doesn’t, because she has yet to develop a sense of responsibility.
In this fight, the battle is provoked by someone else and Silent Wolf tries to deflect it. Then when the fight begins it’s not about one person being awesome but selfish, it’s about a group of people being loyal and honorable (and awesome). And the damage to the tavern is acknowledged (“Never come back.” Ouch).
The first movie was about freedom versus honor and this movie is about whether you can value duty and honor and loyalty without being endlessly sucked into stupid bloodshed and a cycle of vengeance.
RHG: My real question is: since it’s was previously demonstrated that the one person who was worthy of the Green Destiny was Li Mu Bai, WHY DID NO ONE GO, “Hm, let’s drop this thing down a volcano” and save everyone some trouble?
Carries: That’s what I kept thinking too! There they were! In New Zealand (which…no). Throw it in Mount Doom like the One Ring!
RHG: That’s a good point about the differences of the tavern brawls, though Jen finally letting her rage flag fly is SO EMOTIONALLY SATISFYING.
I wanted this to be great, I wanted this to be worthy of a sequel. I was SO looking forward to this movie, and I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, I know. But here we are.
That said, it’s on Netflix, so if you subscribe, you’ve already paid for it (it’s not even showing in theaters in Boston as of the writing of this review). You can watch it in English, have some General Tso’s Chicken – it’s about as authentically Chinese as the movie is – and you’ll have a pretty way to spend 2 hours or so of your life. As a movie on it’s own, I’d give it a B. As a CTHD sequel (WHICH IS WHAT IT IS), it’s a C-. Yes, you do get a curve here.
CarrieS: That’s pretty much how I feel about it. It’s barely connected to CTHD so I’m not invested in it as a sequel – I was able to enjoy it on it’s own merits. I had high enough expectations that I saw it on IMAX which I very rarely do, and that format was perfect for playing up the strengths of the movie (the costumes and fight choreography and scenery, although it bugged me that they filmed it in New Zealand and not China).
I had low enough expectations that I didn’t feel a huge sense of let-down. I found it to be solidly feminist and visually gorgeous and very exciting, but unlike CTHD, it’s not a movie that is still giving me ALL THE FEELS days later. I’m perfectly happy with a B grade as a stand alone, I would maybe go with a B+ but that’s largely because of the viewing format which isn’t available in most places.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny is available to stream on Netflix.
OMG! Now I can almost taste that Yeoh/Anderson movie and I want it so bad! ::sighs::
I might watch this just because of Michelle Yeoh. And as an excuse to order General Chicken.
I was also very disappointed in this movie. Speaking of General Tso, there is a fun documentary on Netflic called “The Search for General Tso”, which examines how the dish became popular. It might be more interesting to watch.
I completely forgot this movie was supposed to come out. Probably because it was one the reasons I started thinking of 2016 as the year of the sequels no one was asking for. (My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2? Independence Day 2?)
I missed all the feels, too, although the creeping dread of “please don’t kill them” nearly strangled me, even on the Netflix screen. The heart just wasn’t there in this film, so I agree with both of you. It is definitely worth watching–make sure you choose English if you want mouths to match words–because it is still feminist, gorgeous and exciting.
PS: I recommend HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS for the go-watch-it-now-we’ll-wait list. Because, ye gods, Takeshi Kaneshiro.
+1 for House of Flying Daggers, which was gorgeous.
For an interesting female protagonist portrayal in a Chinese historical drama, I also suggest The Assassin. It’s not your typical OTT costume drama or wuxia, and is very subtle and layered. Not everyone’s style, but I loved it. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3508840/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Crap. I shmortzed my italic tags there, sorry about that 🙁
I’m one of the few people on earth who didn’t find CTHD to be all that. Sure it was pretty to look at, so was Hero, but ultimately left me cold and not caring about any of the characters.
Now if you want to watch something with amazing fight scenes, lavish costumes, brilliant acting, plot twists and turns, all the bromance, and you’ve got about 54 hours to kill, I highly, highly, highly, highly recommend Nirvana In Fire.
Maybe I’ll just watch Wing Chun again instead…
I saw CTHD and I enjoyed it, but I must not have understood the subtitles because I completely failed to understand why she jumped. I remember thinking, “now they can be together” and next thing she jumped.
Can anyone explain that to me?
I wasn’t thrilled by CTHD either. When we saw it in the theater, my hubby and I were with my parents, who decided to bow out because we couldn’t’ all find decent seats. Everyone applauded at the end and my hubby and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. Damn MInnesotans! We didn’t understand the ending like Gloriamarie. I think we’re both genre fiction people at heart and the movie ended like lit fic.
Add my recommendation to House of Flying Daggers but I HATED the Assassin which I saw at VIFF last fall. I kept waiting for daytime scenes so I could look at my watch and do the math as to when it would be over. Others weren’t so patient and just walked out. So much promise and such a dud of a movie.
But I will try out this sequel just because of Michelle Yeoh.
When I went to see the original movie, I was living in London. I went to a cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue. It was such a pretentious cinema that when you bought your ticket you were given a four page, typed intellectual analysis of the film before it even began!
I think the Crouching Tiger fad has passed. Make whatever movie you want, but don’t try and cash in on a past success!
Also, it’s funny, because I attend so many Formula One races I see Michelle Yeoh all the time (she has been in a relationship with one of the major F1 heavyweights for nearly a decade). I just don’t associate her with Crouching Tiger anymore. I think it’s too late to continue with the franchise.
I just found out about this because I was IMDBing something for work and it came up in a banner ad and I went WHAT?! CTHD broke my heart a little but it was SO beautiful, and everyone in it was so beautiful, and it looks like this cast is equally beautiful, and I don’t really care about the logic of follow-on plots, and we are fans of martial arts movies anyway (we even saw Shaolin Soccer) and I will see Michelle Yeoh in anything, so, there you go. We’ll be seeing it.
Still waiting for someone to explain to me what I failed to understand in CTHD… why did she jump?
Sometimes I feel like the only person in the Western world who was just completely unimpressed by CTHD. (Then again I had been watching wuxia movies on SBS for a couple years by that point.) The wire-fu was gorgeous but I never got into the plot. I seriously doubt I’ll end up getting into this one either, although I am surprised it took so long to make a sequel.
Seconding the recommendation for Curse of the Golden Flower (it will make you cry repeatedly), and adding suggestions for Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Red Cliff (with the caveat that it needs to be the full version, the three hour version is lacking most of the juicy plot), and all three Ip Man movies.
I know this is a year old post but having just watched this on Netflix I felt I need to put in my two cents worth.
I came into this movie having read the reviews and what people had to say and honestly I never expected this to be an attempt at reacreating the original Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I took it for what it was.
I think there’s a certain amount of pretentious elitism from many critics who felt this semi-sequel sullied the memory of the original because it takes such a different tone.
“Professional” critics have always had an aristocratic looking-down-their-nose attitude toward movies anyway so when a martial arts movie – like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon – wins them over I think it’s expected that they’d feel as if it’s a personal affront for a sequel to be so… common. That’s what Sword of Destiny is: common, simple and fun.
I’d hope more people could just accept this film for what it is. Of course there’s tropes and plenty of well-tested and familiar turns but many of us enjoy the comfort of familiarity and embrace the fun rather than feel it’s beneath us.
Several critics have said the actors look bored or distracted but I feel that’s projection on their part. None of the main players here were duped into these roles or in need of work. To my eyes I see a twinkle of joy in their eyes at being able to play with their characters and have fun with them. I recommend this film.