“I want to say so many secrets,” says Natasha Liu Bordizzo, the half-Italian, half-Chinese, Sydney-born star of the Netflix original film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, a sequel to its namesake. “But no, I’m going to get in trouble if I say some of these, I need to think of something food-related, that’s always safe.”
Just a year-and-a-half ago Bordizzo was a college freshman on track to law school, “I was doing such an academic degree, and I thought I might as well do it because I worked hard to get into it, I was very idealistic, I wanted to change things, to work for the UN.” An open casting call for the kung fu sequel changed everything for the young student, who has trained in Taekwondo since childhood, reading a black belt status in the martial art. “The thought of being a ballerina made me want to barf, even as a young girl I was very aware of needing to have some self-defense skills and just toughening up a little bit.”
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny takes a different direction and only Michelle Yeoh has reprised her role. “You can’t be Ang Lee,” Bordizzo notes sagely, “we’re just going in a completely different direction. Its better to appreciate our film almost like a stand-alone piece.” The film takes its name from Chinese poet Yu Xin’s idiom, “behind the rock in the dark probably hides a tiger, and the coiling giant root resembles a crouching dragon.” So, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, which are you, a tiger or a dragon?
Photographer: Olivia Malone for Brydges MacKinney.
Stylist: Sean Knight for Jed Root.
Hair: Sylvia Wheeler for Atelier Management using Orbie.
Makeup: Kali Kennedy for Art Department using M.A.C COSMETICS.