According to reports the Weinstein Company’s plan to create sequels to its 2000 hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is actually going ahead. Marred by a lengthy legal battle and delays it looks like we’re finally seeing the project move forward with a script, two leads and a director announced.

What’s more is that the article mentions sequels, and so the plans that were originally laid out to adapt more of Wang Du Lu’s Crane-Iron Pentalogy looks like it’s actually going to happen.

It was well back in March 2006 that we first heard about the plan to make more films from the series, then there was talk of a couple of prequels as well as a possible stage show and the Weinstein Company bought the rights to Wang Du Lu's novel series of which five were written and the fourth was the story for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That was when the trouble started and in April of the same Columbia arrived on the scene saying they had a verbal agreement for the rights to the books.

That dragged on for ages, even after a year they hadn’t resolved the issue. Then in January of this year we heard that the project was moving forward.

John Fusco had adapted the fifth novel in the series already, a book called Silver Vase, Iron Knight. The great news about that choice was that Fusco followed the genre of Chinese fiction called Wu Sia that the works fall under. He also wrote scripts such as Crossroads, Young Guns, Thunderheart, Hidalgo and The Forbidden Kingdom.

Then it was Ronny Yu that was mentioned as a possible director and that concerned me, while he had the strong Fearless (Filmstalker review) under his belt he also had western films such as Bride of Chucky, The 51st State, Freddy vs Jason, none of which sounded very hopeful.

Now though there’s a change of name for behind the camera for the film that is now called The Green Destiny, losing the Iron Knight, Silver Vase title which would have connected it so well with the original film adaptation and the source novels. The connection remains though, if you do remember the original film, for that title is the name of the sword from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Through Twitch we’re hearing that Yuen Woo-Ping will direct the film. He, you might remember, was the man who designed the fight sequences in the original film. He’s a director who has stayed with martial arts related films and not made the leap to Western cinema for his directing roles so that means one of two things, either the Weinstein Company have enticed him across for this first Western attempt or they’re letting him make it his way, I’m hoping it’s the latter.

In front of the camera is where the exciting news lies for Michelle Yeoh set to return as Yu Shu Lien and she’s going to be joined by the amazing Donnie Yen who will play the character of Silent Wolf. Now that sounds a fantastic cast already, I’m sold.

Twitch also have a comment from the writer John Fusco about how the story and he 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."

Now while that might sound a bit odd remember everything that has come before, the director, the writer’s interest in the genre, the source material, the original film, and of course the two leads. This sounds like it could be really good.