[adrotate banner=”1″]A sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has awoken from slumber and possibly snagged Michelle Yeoh to reprise her role of Yu Shu Lien. Fans of wuxia stories will know that Crouching Tiger is actually the fourth book in a series. The fifth book Silver Vase, Iron Knight is what will become the next feature. The Weinstein Company is behind this new film, having secured the rights of Wang Du-Lu’s Crane-Iron Series (though it seems Wang’s heirs aren’t happy at the amount of money, so expect some lawsuits eventually!) and are bringing Ronny Yu to direct the sequel, with John Fusco (The Forbidden Kingdom) having written the script.
Fusco says
“This introduces a new generation of star-crossed lovers, and a new series of antagonists in a battle of good and evil. It has a Knights Errant quality. There is an alternate universe in the books, a martial forest that exists alongside the real world, full of wandering sword fighters, medicine men, defrocked priests, poets, sorcerers and Shaolin renegades. It’s so vast and rich, and I found characters from the second and third books in the series to create a most interesting stew while being as true to the source material as I could be.”
How good this ends up being will be a mystery, though I seriously doubt it will approach Crouching Tiger in quality. I say that not as a pessimist, but a realist. I can be perfectly fine on its own laurels, but it will be burdened with the association to the original classic.