What a time for Asian cinema in Hollywood. From the hit film Crazy Rich Asians to the award-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once, we see a resurgence of Asian talent in the mainstream, much like in the late 90s and the early 00s.
One of the most notable films from that period was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and now we are seeing another attempt to bring it – and the other novels included in Wang Dulu’s Crane-Iron Pentalogy – to life on the small screen.
Deadline reports that Sony Pictures Television will team with Jason Ning to adapt the books into multiple series. Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, and Johnny Levin are attached as executive producers. Also attached to the project are Sony’s favourite Marvel producers, Amy Pascal, Phil Lord, and Christopher Miller.
We saw the most famous adaptation of the work in Ang Lee’s 2000 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The original books were published between 1938 and 1944 and followed the struggles of four generations of youxia, a type of ancient Chinese warrior folk hero. The film starred Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun-Fat, and Zhang Ziyi.
Ning is best known for his work on Lucifer and is working on Mrs. Davis from Damon Lindelof and Brad Falchuk’s The Brother’s Sun on Netflix. He is also attached to another Sony TV project in the Marvel adaptation Silk: Spider Society, where he will serve as co-executive producer alongside showrunner Angela Kang (The Walking Dead).
