Exclusive interview with author Justin Hill and a review of his companion book to the first-ever film produced by Netflix
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Gabrielle Pantera
“I was working on a historical novel about the Viking king Harald Hardrada, when my editor called me up out of the blue and asked me if I’d be interested in working on a novelization of the script of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny,” says author Justin Hill. “I’d seen the first film when it came out, and was blown away by the combination of beauty and action, which seemed to suit my style. And, I loved the idea of a writing a Chinese Game of Thrones.”
The original Crouching Tiger novel was written by Wang Dulu. Netflix rebooted the story to create an original screenplay, then Hill adapted the new screenplay back into a novel. There are still epic sword fights, but the new story sheds new light on why and how the characters do what they do. It’s an epic quest with female and male warriors fighting for good or evil.
Green Destiny is the sword that conquered the world. Seventeen years ago legendary fighter Mubai died protecting it. Duke Te hides the sword. When he dies, four warriors are called on to guard the formidable weapon. Shulien was Mubai’s lover and secretly had their child. Honor demands she must go to protect the sword from warlord Hades Dai. Young fighters Wei-fang and Snow Vase, join her. Shulien’s former fiancé, Silent Wolf, who was presumed dead, returns to help defeat Hades Dai. Shulien realizes they are still connected.
Hill, who has written stories about both modern and historical China, first traveled to China in the winter of 1992 where he worked for a volunteer organization in rural Shanxi province. He stayed in rural China for most of his twenties and started writing books set in China.
“We’re familiar with books being changed into movies, so to go the other way round and turn a script into a book was a really novel experience,” say Hill not noting the pun. “One of the most interesting things was how differently scenes worked on the page and on the screen. A script relies on so many other people.”
Hill studied books of old photos of China and read first person accounts of the times from Chinese voices, such as Ida Pruit’s interviews in Daughter of Han, and Old Madam Yin. He read all the Chinese classics and literature set in the transition period at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
Hill first book was A Bend in the Yellow River (1997), when he was 22. The Drink and Dream Teahouse (2001), a novel set in modern China, was his first attempt at writing fiction. A penniless student at the time, the story sold at auction for a record-breaking £150,000 and was named the Washington Post Book of the Year 2002, translated into 16 languages and was even banned in China.
He has since been nominated three times for the Booker Prize. Among the awards he has won are the Thomas Cook award in 2003 for Ciao Asmara and the Somerset Maugham Award in 2005, for Passing Under Heaven.
After writing exclusively about China Hill moved on to eleventh century England and the Battle of Hastings, with his 2011 tome Shieldwall named a Sunday Times Book of the Year. The sequel, Viking Fire, will be out next year.
Hill, who spent almost all of his adult life in China, recently moved the family back to his native North Yorkshire. They live in a lovely little village on the Hambleton Hills overlooking the Vale of York, about five miles from where he grew up.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny by Justin Hill (Author), Wang Dulu (Author – pen name of Wang Baoxiang) Trade Paperback, 320 pages, Publisher: Weinstein Books; Mti edition (January 26, 2016), Language: English, ISBN: 9781602862876 $14.99. The Neflix film is released on February 26th.
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