We Sorta Wish That ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2’ Had Stayed Hidden

It’s finally here! The sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon we’ve all been … waiting for? Curious about? Grimly anticipating with the resigned certainty that everything we once loved will eventually get rebooted and sequelized? Whatever we’re calling it, it’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, and it’s available to stream on Netflix right now.

Yes, on the one hand, without Ang Lee back in the director’s chair, this film feels like less of an event than its predecessor. That said stepping in as director is Yuen Woo-ping, the legendary Hong Kong director and fight choreographer responsible for the action in films like Drunken Master, The Matrix, Kill Bill, The Grandmaster, and the original Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In 1994, Yuen directed the kung fu film Wing Chun, starring Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen (you can rent it on Amazon Video), and both those stars are reunited for Sword of Destiny, helping to give this film an air of reunion apart from its Crouching Tiger roots.

Going into the movie, we don’t know much. Here’s the description that accompanies the film on Netflix:

Renowned warrior Yu Shu-Lien comes out of retirement to keep the legendary Green Destiny sword away from villainous warlord Hades Dai.

As for the film itself …

I’ll say this to begin with: the color palette on this film is really beautiful, and the opening, mournful narration by Michelle Yeoh as Yu Shu-Lien is really enhanced by the visuals. Yeoh is by far the film’s strongest card. She projects both wisdom and a badass vitality that makes you wish more filmmakers would utilize her as a lead. Particularly since the language barriers prove to be no barriers to her at all.

Yes, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny is in English. Not dubbed English, either. The actors are all speaking the Queen’s English, utterly out of context, in the film’s biggest nod towards its American target audience. Well, that and the fact that Glee‘s Harry Shum Jr. is cast in the lead role of Wei-Fang, a handsome rogue who is one of several characters seeking the fabled Green Destiny.

It’s that sword, almost more than Yu Shu-Lien herself, that keeps the original Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon alive in this story. The Green Destiny belonged to Li Mu-Bai in the original, and his legacy is spoken in hushed tones here. But it’s that legacy of Li Mu-Bai and the Green Destiny that’s most at odds with the story here. Yeoh stands in for the romanticism that Ang Lee brought to the first film, but the Wei-Fang story is much more of a classic hero’s journey tale. He’s a classic Chosen One, whose fate has been aligned with the Green Destiny by the stars or by a clairvoyant witch or by the stars … honestly, take your pick. The point is that Wei-Fang is basically The Special, and as The Special, he’s on a collision course with the sword.

He’s not the only one. The dreamily-named Snow Vase also has her eyes on the sword. She takes up as Yu Shu-Lien’s apprentice, and there are training scenes with Wei-Fang locked in a nearby cage that are charming, if weightless. There are attempts to add gravitas to the young-lovers story between Snow Vase and Wei-fang, mostly via the kinds of flashbacks that helped elevate Ang Lee’s film from a martial-arts showcase to a sweeping romance that was able to capture the imaginations of moviegoers and Oscar voters alike. The scenes in Sword of Destiny feel much flatter by comparison, more perfunctory and far less impactful.

But Sword of Destiny certainly has its moments. Yuen Woo-Ping certainly hasn’t lost his flair for staging a fight scene. There’s a three-way duel on a frozen lake that is breathtaking in its beauty and in its command of choreography.

These are the moments that make The Sword of Destiny a worthy effort even if it faces a hopeless task of living up to its predecessor. It also makes you wish Netflix would just give people like Yuwn Woo-Ping and Michelle Yeoh (and yell, Harry Shum Jr. with that angel face of his) a bunch of money to make something new. Of all the nostalgia cash-ins we’ll be getting in 2016, I’m willing to bet none of them look this good.