In Hollywood, everyone and their auntie is getting aboard to the Chinese bandwagon, looking for opportunities in the ever-growing movie market. The Weinstein Co. is no exception and its sequel to Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is gearing up with news of another cast member. Harry Shum Jr., Mike Chang in Glee, is joining the martial arts jamboree.
Shum, who has movie credits in** Step Up 2: The Streets** and Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, will play a character called Tie-Fang. He’s one of the four martial arts heroes of an underworld world, alongside Silent Wolf (Donnie Yen) and Yu Shu-lien. Between them they’re charged with keeping a sword called Green Destiny out of the hands of the frankly despicable Hades Dai. Nice job with the first name there, Mr and Mrs Dai.
The story is penned by John Fusco (The Forbidden Kingdom) from Silver Vase, Iron Knight, the fifth book in Wang Du Lu’s Crane-Iron Pentalogy (the first Crouching Tiger film was taken from the fourth). It’s set two decades after the end of Ang Lee’s film and, according to its writer, 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.”
It’s all overseen by legendary martial arts director Yuen Wo Ping, who worked as choreographer on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon back in 2000 and presumably has the flying-fighting action down pat. He's currently shooting the sequel in China and New Zealand.
That's not all the Weinstein Co. has up its sleeve of a martial arts nature. Also underway are a pair of Shaw Brothers remakes of King Hu's seminal Come Drink With Me and Sun Chung's The Avenging Eagle. Look out for more on those as we get it.