Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny

While I think it is a reasonably good wire-fu martial arts movie, Sword of Destiny isn’t really a worthy sequel to the near-perfect original. For one, the decision to film in English is regrettable. The native English speaking actors seem out of place and the Chinese speaking ones have trouble delivering. Second, there’s also a bit too much of those made-for-TV CGI effects. Finally, it tries a bit too hard to hit the same beats as the original but doesn’t quite understand why things like the extended flashbacks worked in Crouching Tiger. But, it’s easy to look past its flaws and just enjoy it as a well-executed martial arts picture that manages to muster a few fun original moments like the ice fight and tavern brawl.