I had pretty much given up on this title after I first stumbled across it on Netflix. I started watching it in the default language, English, which, after all is what the actors were mouthing. Also, it's a Netflix offering, which are all a bit "light", so I was expecting they would turn it in to a formulaic happy-ending thing - more on that later. Also, how could they replace Zhang Ziyi? Well, they did, with Australian Chinese Australian actress Natasha Liu Bordizzo. They are playing different but similar characters, and they are different but similar, so all good there.
Then many months later I saw it come up again and I thought I'd try watching it with the Chinese soundtrack and it really was a different experience - the English language always sounds so hackneyed in moves - has every line of original sounding dialogue already been written? When I was watching it in Chinese, I found it to be a similar experience to the original movie, a little less subtle perhaps, right up until the end. And here was my biggest problem. She dies in the final battle, right? But then she's riding off into the sunset at the end? What happened there? So is that a spoiler or not? Anyway, a decent sequel. Not a masterpiece, but solid entertainment and better than its current 6.1 score anyway.
