Why would he be dressed up the same as Eric?

Within this storyline, Sarah is pretty much the only person from the 1st movie as the only connection between understanding the presence and powers of the Crow and Ashe. She painted Ashe with his dead son's paint kit in the same style of Eric as an homage to him. It's a clever way to mask(no pun intended) that it was the studio's way of trying to make the sequel similar on many instances to the original. They wanted familiarity with fans and potential moviegoers.

I've not seen the film for a long time but I recall two things which really annoyed me and this was one of them.

There was no need for Ashe to get dressed up the same as Eric. He could have found his own unique and equally cool look which would have separated the film from the original.

Also the recasting of Sarah was off. Mia Kirshner looked nothing like Rochelle Davis, they couldn't even be bother to get an actress with the same hair colour and she didn't even seem like the same person.

I get why they would want the character in there as SOME sort of connection but if they couldn't get Davis then they just shouldn't have bothered.

Apart from that I remember thinking the film was quite stylish and I liked the visual look of the whole thing and that there was a more red in there than the suggested monochrome of the first film.

I'll need to watch it again but after discovering that it was butchered by the studio I'm interested to see a proper directors cut.