Such a frustrating disappointment

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The usual good performance from Michelle Yeoh and a decent supporting cast cannot make much out of this rather dull martial arts sequel. The main problem is in the butchered story and so there are lots of spoilers here, all in the last-but-one paragraph.The acting is reasonable enough, Jason Scott Lee looks good as the bad guy, the simple plot at least makes sense and things move along at a good pace. Cinematography is fine, though it doesn't match the original. The characters are less interesting here though and Donnie Yen, while better than Chow Yun Fat in the fight scenes, has never been much of an actor. The great problem is the storyline. Supposedly based on Wang Dulu's Crane-Iron Pentalogy, actually the script bears little relationship to the novels and has clearly been written to accommodate Yen as a star name (his character dies early on in the book series). There is a kind of symmetry about wuxia fiction which should not be disturbed. A westerner's butchering of a Chinese story is never likely to work in this genre and this particular carve-up feels entirely wrong.At the end it's stated that Vase avenged her teacher. This is what should have happened but she wasn't allowed to. Wolf fighting Dai was inappropriate. So he had earlier thrown a fight against him – what kind of reason is that for revenge? Vase should also have been the principal in the pursuit of Wei Fang, as she was the one to lose the sword to him, and Wolf could have supported her with this. Meanwhile, Wolf should have been allowed to take his own revenge on Mantis who, in the course of the movie, had killed every one of his friends. Shu Lien, throughout the crescendo and climax, is left with nothing worthwhile to do and the strand about her teaching Vase leads nowhere. Vase should have mastered some skill which allowed her to defeat Dai and make sense of his earlier instruction to allow her to become 'worth killing'. Instead we see Shu using the skill she seems to have failed to teach to Vase. I did however like the switching of weapons in the fight and Dai's final line.Those who prefer westernised versions of Chinese martial arts to the real thing, may find this entertaining enough to be worth the time, but don't hope for anything nearly as good as CTHD.

Greetings from Lithuania."Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny" (2016) is a guilty pleasure. It's predictable and kinda cheese flick, but i enjoyed much more then i taught i would - just don't compare it with the first one, it lacks the magic of the original or any deep. Nevertheless as a 1h 40 min escapism flick it does it's job well enough to recommend it. There are some pretty weak stuff, like some flashbacks to characters at the end who have died - that didn't work, or romance which is a more like "meet-cute" then real thing (nothing so deep and poetry like it was in the first one - not for a mile). But this movie is excellently paced, i wasn't bored for a second, characters are more or less two dimensional but well drawn so you can separate one from another - and Natasha Liu Bordizzo (aka Snow Vase) is very gorgeous young woman - that was her first role ever - not that's a plus for a movie itself - just saying...Overall, "Sword of Destiny" is totally different movie then first one. It lacks any poetry, it is a very straightforward and kinda predictable flick, but very enjoyable one for a one evening.

This belated sequel to CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON retains chief actress Michelle Yeoh and the wuxia look and feel to the thing, but jettisons everything else. The overrated Ang Lee has gone to be replaced by the reliable Yuen Woo-Ping as director, and Donnie Yen has been brought in to replace Chow Yun-Fat in the lead hero stakes. Plus, with this being a Chinese/American co-production, the decision was made to shoot the thing in English with mainly western-speaking actors.It's a bit of a mixed bag of a film, with a very basic storyline which barely deserves mention (lots of different characters are in pursuit of a mystical sword). What it does offer, as a film, is plenty of action, with lots of fight scenes that surpass the ones in the original (I didn't think much of the first film at all, looking back on it). Yen and Yeoh are as reliable as ever, and the towering Jason Scott Lee looks virtually unrecognisable as the bad guy. The only issue is that, as with lots of modern Chinese films, the insistence on including lots of cheesy CGI scenes of flying people and the like looks ridiculous. It's about time that filmmakers realise that less is more when it comes to CGI (are you listening, Peter Jackson?) and that movies would be a lot better if they stuck to being more practical in approach.

Some people said to not compare this one to the first one. But how can you not when the film is carrying on the same title as the first one? When "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" first came out at the time, it was known as a artistic kung-fu movie. With a well told story and some breathtaking cinematography and well executed action sequence. This sequel strays away from that and tries to go in a more "300" like direction. Sure, some kung-fu movies focus more on the action sequences with the story being there for the set up of those fights. But it's still a disappointing movie to sit through. The story is very forgettable with there being zero emotion although it tries to bring out some emotions from the audiences. It's just a irritating and annoying movie to sit through, because most of the characters are not likable and because you just don't care at all about the cause and effect. With a title like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", I thought they would have more resources. But there really isn't much and the whole experience just came off lackluster. I will say some of the fight choreography is great, despite it having a lot of CGI integrated into it. While other fight scenes just comes off cheesy and by the numbers. And when it tries to show a in-depth or artistic imagery it just felt like a cheap cardboard cutout. It's like they just focused on making few good fight choreography and was just lazy when it came to the story and the artistic visuals. I will say if this is a movie you see through Netflix, it's a alright watch. But besides that this isn't a movie I would really recommend to others. But I will say it's a alright watched, it's quite forced but it's alright. Although it's quite forgettable.5.5/10