Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016) - Critic Reviews

Anyone merely hoping for more gravity-defying fight sequences will be reasonably satisfied by Sword Of Destiny, which chugs along amiably enough and never goes very long without a skirmish of some sort.

67

Chris Nashawaty Entertainment Weekly

It’s a shame the rest of the soap-opera story doesn’t measure up to its stunts.

63

Brian Tallerico RogerEbert.com

A well-made, confident piece of entertainment that lacks the poetry and nuance of the first film and gets less interesting as its narrative thinness is revealed but never feels like something that’s being phoned in to make a quick buck.

63

Chuck Bowen Slant Magazine

Sword of Destiny has an appealingly inventive, unruly genre party streak running down its figurative back.

50

Katie Walsh Los Angeles Times

There are a few inventive battles on a frozen pond and atop the tiled roof of a temple, but they are so CGI-enhanced as to seem cartoonish, not marvelous.

50

Dan Mecca The Film Stage

Like so many too-late sequels, the film — directed by the first film’s action choreographer Yuen Woo-ping — rides on waves of nostalgia and little else.

40

Elizabeth Kerr The Hollywood Reporter

The emotional connective tissue that made Lee’s film so poetic, romantic, tragic and thrilling is missing here, reducing Sword of Destiny to a series of loosely related fight sequences and gauzy, overwrought flashbacks.

40

Jordan Hoffman The Guardian

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny isn’t so much a continuation as a Xerox copy with cheap toner.

30

James Marsh Screen Daily

Clocking in at just 96 minutes, Sword of Destiny feels heavily truncated, lacking in narrative substance. Scant characterisation and timid action choreography don’t help matters, while an over-reliance on simple sets and CGI landscapes mean Grant Major’s (The Lord of the Rings) production design lacks the resonance of the previous film.

30

Justin Chang Variety

Trading on the pedigree of Ang Lee’s 2000 Oscar winner but capturing none of its soulful poetry, this martial-arts mediocrity has airborne warriors aplenty but remains a dispiritingly leaden affair with its mechanical storytelling, purely functional action sequences and clunky English-language performances.