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'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny' trailer: Will the movie attain the cultural dominance of the original?

The new 'Crouching' movie will be released on Netflix and in some IMAX theaters this February. The first movie was released in 2000 and became a box office smash, a rarity for a foreign language film.

A trailer has been released for the upcoming film 鈥淐rouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny.鈥

The sequel to the hit 2000 foreign-language film is being released this February on Netflix and features the return of 鈥淐rouching鈥 star Michelle Yeoh. She will be joined by Harry Shum Jr., Donnie Yen, Eugenia Yuan, and Jason Scott Lee.聽

The film is the newest prestige project for Netflix, which is already the home of acclaimed original television such as 鈥淗ouse of Cards鈥 and 鈥淥range Is the New Black鈥 and has already released this year a possible Oscar contender, the movie 鈥淏easts of No Nation.鈥澛

Netflix is also set to release a movie with Brad Pitt, 鈥淲ar Machine,鈥 as well as a movie starring Adam Sandler, 鈥淭he Ridiculous 6,鈥 among others.

How popular will 鈥淪word鈥 become? The first 鈥淐rouching鈥 movie, which was released in 2000, became a phenomenon in America, attaining a level of popularity that is rare for a foreign language film.聽

鈥淐rouching鈥 was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, not just in the best foreign language film category, a rarity for these kinds of films. (The 2012 French movie 鈥淎mour鈥 was nominated for Best Picture but that was in a time when the field was open to more than five films, which was not the case when 鈥淐rouching鈥 made the cut.)聽

鈥淐rouching鈥 also became a hit at the box office. Not only is it the highest-grossing foreign-language film of all time in America, it grossed more than twice that of the next-highest contender, 1998鈥檚 "Life Is Beautiful"聽

How did the first 鈥淐rouching鈥 movie become that successful? Superlative reviews no doubt got audiences鈥 attention, with critics praising the movie鈥檚 cast, the fighting choreography, and the cinematography, among other aspects.

In addition, the promise of action scenes no doubt lured moviegoers who would otherwise have been uninterested in a foreign-language film.聽

This success could likely be replicated by another foreign-language movie, as long as it involved a story that appealed to so many demographics as 鈥淐rouching鈥 did.聽

In our present day, Hollywood is looking to China and other large foreign markets to make their films as big a hit as possible. For example, when the 1980s film 鈥淩ed Dawn鈥 was remade, the scriptwriters initially planned to make the villains Chinese, but digitally switched their nationalities to North Korean in postproduction so as not to potentially affect the film鈥檚 performance in China.

Meanwhile, the question of whether the second 鈥淐rouching鈥 movie will be a hit is a murkier one because it鈥檚 so hard to measure the success of Netflix properties. While Hollywood often measures a movie by its opening weekend gross, it will be harder to call the second 鈥淐rouching鈥 movie a success or failure because Netflix will most likely not release viewership numbers for the movie. (It rarely provides numbers for who watches their TV programs.)

鈥淪word of Destiny鈥 will be playing in some IMAX theaters but those numbers will presumably not give a full picture of who is watching the film.聽

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