Honestly, I had no idea that a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel was in the works. Did anyone else know about this? When was this even announced?
I may be out of the loop but it appears that at least one person knew about this, and that person is Harvey Weinstein, one half of The Weinstein Company, who are gearing up to film a sequel to Ang Lee’s film this May. Apparently, the studio has fought with Sony for the past little while over the rights to the books that Lee’s film was based on. Turns out Harvey won that battle (no surprise) and now he’s going ahead and putting out a sequel.
With a script from John Fusco, who wrote The Forbidden Kingdom, and based on the novel Silver Vase, Iron Knight, the story is set to focus on Yu Shu Lien, which was Michelle Yeoh’s character in the first film. For a more detailed synopsis, check out the official plot of the book below but be warned, there are spoilers.
Jen (Zhang Ziyi) gives birth to Lo’s (Chang Chen) son. Fang secretly replaces her son with a baby girl, Silver Vase. Later Fang is robbed and rescued by an armed escort. Jen’s son is taken to Han Wen Pei’s home by the maid and named Iron Knight. After growing up, Iron Knight travels miles to look for his parents. When he finally meets Jen and Lo in the desert, he doesn’t recognize them until they are both killed in front of him. The pentalogy ends when Iron Knight and Silver Vase are joined together. In the end, Yu Shu Lian (Yeoh) dies from disease and Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) loses his chance to be with her forever. But the biggest tragedy is the tiger (Lo) perishes in the icy mountain and the dragon (Jen) gets lost in the desert.
In talks to direct is Ronny Yu, who directed, among other things, the excellent Fearless, starring Jet Li. Also in talks to come on board is fight choreographer Wo Ping Yuen, who has quite an impressive resume (including Fearless) and is a bit of a legend. So far, so good. Yeoh, Yu, Yuen seem like a pretty strong line up and the fact that they are all on board does give me hope. Too bad Ang Lee wouldn’t return to direct but like I said, I did really enjoy Fearless so I have faith in Ronny Yu.
We’ll keep you posted on more news about the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel as it rolls in but in the meantime let us know if this is a sequel that you’re interested in seeing. And again, did anyone even know this was happening?