Back in January, reports emerged that the film adaptation of the acclaimed Hong Kong-set 2012 open-world action-adventure video game “Sleeping Dogs” was seemingly dead.
The game was a GTA-style open-world title, but set in the city of Hong Kong. In the game, Will Yun Lee voiced the lead role of Wei Shen, an undercover cop in Hong Kong on a mission to take down a powerful criminal organization – the Sun On Yee Triad.
It was acclaimed for its story, characters, city recreation and combat elements, but developer United Front Games has shuttered so no sequels or remake talk of the game have since emerged.
For years, Asian action legend Donnie Yen tried to get a film adaptation going with him starring, despite the character being around half Yen’s age. He even invested some of his own money into those efforts, but about a year ago, he gave comments seemingly resigned to the fact that the property was dead.
Then, “Shang Chi” star Simu Liu took to social media In January to say he is: “working with the rights holders to bring Sleeping Dogs to the big screen!”.
Those efforts appear to have paired off with Liu today revealing a draft of the script for the film is complete and posting a photo of the cover page on X though keeping the writer’s name under wraps.
Responding to a fan who asked about how things worked out with game publisher Square Enix, Liu said: “They’re absolutely great it’s the studios that don’t seem to understand how important this IP is BUT we will get them there.”
Of course, a script is still a long way from an in production film but it does suggest we are one step closer to seeing it realised.
