When Yuen Woo-Ping accepted the challenge to be the director of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny,” he was aware that he was filling the big shoes of the original director Ang Lee. The original movie, after all, not only broke box office record, but also harvested a lot of awards for the 2000 film.
Yuen does not only introduce a new generation of moviegoers – many of whom had not seen Ang Lee’s version of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" – to the story, he also wanted to give it a fresh approach by keeping only Michelle Yeoh as basically the only new element in the sequel.
Yeoh, who still plays the same character Yu Xiulian, said that the original lacked a real feeling of “jianghu” or the concept of a community of martial arts fighters. To ensure that element characterizes the sequel, Yuen had the American writer of the script rewrite it several times until the “jianghu” spirit was evident.
“He didn’t write about the spirit of martial arts. Without that spirit, those martial arts characters are empty,” explained Yuen who clarified that the first draft was not badly written but had characters whose values were very western, reported Global Times.
In stating that “Crouching Tiger 2” took the audience into “jianghu,” Yeoh only wanted to emphasize the different directorial styles of Ang and Yuen whom she compared to the Sun and Moon, and Heaven and Earth.
Next week, mainland and U.S. viewers, especially those who saw the 2000 version, would have a chance to compare the masterpieces of Ang and Yuen. Beyond the directorial difference between the two, Slashfilm pointed out that another difference is the mode of film distribution which has changed in 15 years.
The original “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was released in the U.S. in theaters, while the sequel goes straight to Netflix which recently expanded its reach to more than 100 nations. The Netflix trailer, released on Thursday, is seen below.