Metro recently got the chance to speak to international actress and action star Michelle Yeoh about her career from her days in dance to her rise as a Hong Kong action star. Among other things, the interview also illustrates where Yeoh currently stands while it is rumored she may reprise her role in Silver Vase, Iron Knight, the sequel to Ang Lee’s 2000 Oscar and Academy award-winning epic wuxia action love story, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, set to start shooting this May.
According to intial reports from Deadline, The Weinstein Company is confident it has secured the rights to Chinese novelist Wang Du Lu‘s “Crane-Iron” book series, with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon having been the fourth entry. Silver Vase, Iron Knight already has a script prepared by writer John Fusco who had this to say to Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr. about the fifth book and what it could bring in transition to the big screen for martial arts cinema fans:
This was an opportunity to explore a lifelong passion I’ve had for Wu Sia, and if there wasn’t continuing source material, I would never have gotten involved…
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.
The sequel is expected to include the continuation Michelle Yeoh’s character from Ang Lee’s film as Yu Shu Lien, a swordswoman whose friendship with Jen, played by Zhang Ziyi, leads to an epic adventure that deals with murder, mystery, romance, betrayal, tragedy, unrequited love and a triumph of the human spirit. When Metro approached Michelle with questions regarding the upcoming sequel, she said the following:
It’s early stages…It still depends on the script and who the director is, and it’s never easy to make another movie after such an incredible classic but Crouching Tiger is a gem in my heart and always will be. So we will see.
It has been reported that director Ronny Yu is set to helm the upcoming wuxia actioner, hot off the release of his latest period war epic, Saving General Yang which is set to release on April 4, 2013, with exception to the United States. Also, having namely created one of his favorite action sequences throughout his career in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, legendary martial arts filmmaker Yuen Woo-Ping is expected to return as action choreographer, as he is currently helming his own upcoming English-language martial arts action trilogy with a first film titled Vigilantes: The Lost Order.
To read the rest of Michelle Yeoh’s interview with Metro, CLICK HERE.