Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny Review

<p>Released fifteen years prior&comma; the original<em> Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon<&sol;em> was showered with accolades receiving four Oscars but six nominations which included Best Director for Ang Lee&period; It’s one of the best martial arts movies in living memory and it was received with open arms&period; The sequel is now available on Netflix and various cinemas in the United States as well as in China too&period; The sequel&comma; <em>Sword Of Destiny<&sol;em> is directed by Yuen Woo-Ping &lpar;<em>Drunken Master<&sol;em>&rpar; and picks up eighteen years after the original movie ended&period; Michelle Yeoh &lpar;<em>Crouching Tiger&comma; Hidden Dragon<&sol;em>&rpar; reprises her role of Yu Shu Lien and the Green Destiny has been presumed lost by many but it is simply concealed in Peking&period; Sir Te from <em>Crouching Tiger&comma; Hidden Dragon<&sol;em> is now deceased and Shu Lien has made a choice to return to Pekin to give her condolences&period; But maybe she has a second more serious agenda&period; Now that Sir Te is dead&comma; there will be forces that will see this as a chance to claim the famous blade for themselves&period; It’s her duty to stop them and help bring peace to the valley&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;100839" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-100839" style&equals;"width&colon; 1200px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-100839" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon-sword-of-destiny-pic-1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Crouching Tiger&comma; Hidden Dragon&colon; Sword Of Destiny &sol; Netflix" width&equals;"1200" height&equals;"675" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-100839" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Crouching Tiger&comma; Hidden Dragon&colon; Sword Of Destiny&comma; Netflix&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>What first strikes me as odd is the sword itself&period; For a sword that everyone believes is long-lost&comma; a lot of people seem to know the exact location of its whereabouts&period; The location has been leaked and now everyone seems knows where it is&period; The leader of this &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;everybody” is the villainous Hades Dai &lpar;<a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0001462&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">Jason Scott Lee<&sol;a>&rpar; who wants the ancient blade for himself and for his own personal glory&period; He wants to wield it so he can become more powerful as anyone who wields the sword&comma; or so the legend says&period; Hades is a seasoned warrior and he seems to be doing rather well for himself&period; Why does he want the sword&quest; Well&comma; it’s the common denominator of human thinking&period; Once we have something&comma; we want something else&period; It’s textbook materialism&period; Rather than get it himself&comma; he sends a lone warrior to retrieve it for him&period; Why dirty your own hands when you can get someone else to do it&quest; In chess&comma; the pawns go first&period; This lone warrior is called Wei Fang &lpar;<a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm1484270&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;fn&lowbar;al&lowbar;nm&lowbar;1" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">Harry Shum&comma; Jr<&sol;a>&period;&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The sequel is dwarfed by the original&period; It has nothing on Ang Lee’s <em>Crouching Tiger&comma; Hidden Dragon<&sol;em> in terms of storyline&comma; acting performances and general aesthetics&period; The story in this sequel is quite flimsy if I’m honest&period; It is very entertaining&comma; and I liked the look of the costumes but the standout elements of the movie were the action sequences which in my opinion were on par with its predecessor&period; They were choreographed by <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0950759&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;fn&lowbar;al&lowbar;nm&lowbar;1" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">Woo-Ping Yuen<&sol;a> who worked on the fight scenes in<em> Kill Bill<&sol;em> &lpar;2003&sol;04&rpar; as martial arts adviser and kung-fu choreographer on <em>The Matrix<&sol;em> &lpar;1999&rpar;&period; The stunts in <em>The Sword Of Destiny<&sol;em> were truly excellent&period; Despite the lacking plot&comma; this movie is worth a watch  purely for the stunts and cinematography&period; The cast deliver good performances&comma; but this is a movie made to entertain&comma; not to enthrall audiences like the original flick did&period; The first movie was beautiful in all the filmed locations while this movie feels like a video game at times&period; However&comma; that’s not necessarily a bad thing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I’d certainly recommend people to watch this&period; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;netflix&period;com&sol;"><strong>Netflix<&sol;strong><&sol;a> have been known to deliver first class programming&period; This is one of their weaker productions but nonetheless a good addition to their roll call&period; There’s great performances from the cast but it appears clichéd at times&period; The script is quite flimsy but I think the pacing is rather good&period; It’s very fast-moving from the get go as we’re thrown in the middle of fight with <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0000706&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;fn&lowbar;al&lowbar;nm&lowbar;1" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">Michelle Yeoh<&sol;a> in the first few minutes&period; It’s one of those movies that you should watch when you don’t want to take things too seriously but serious enough that it doesn’t force you to watch a tacky Adam Sandler comedy&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;