The director's cut , 141 minutes long, adds about 30 minutes total running time to film (although edits as short as 95 minutes seem to be available, this is measured against the common 110 min version.) Of the new 30 minutes, only a little bit is fight scenes (the thai fighter was not what I expected.. fairly short and not part of the tournament) but I think it is a much better movie. Most of the new footage is drama/plot, and the story flows better than the original version. Michelle Yeoh's cameo at the beginning (at during the credits) is included within the cut of the film. Her cameo frames the entire story as very explicitly about Wushu itself, and much of the additional footage is making this point in a very explicit (heavy-handed) way.
With this edit, it is easy to understand Jet's comments about this being his final wushu film - while we've seen many films where the hero learns the "true spirit of martial arts" as part of their personal journey on the road to kicking the bad guy's ass, this is probably the definitive film about wushu itself, and I wouldn't see any point in retreading this ground afterwards.
