Chow Hin-yeung's new take on folk hero Wong Fei-hung has the makings of a hit movie

Writer-director Chow Hin-yeung's third feature, Rise of the Legend, is a triumphant story of survival against the odds, both on and off the screen.

The film is the latest fictionalised account of the life of Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung, a Guangdong boxer from the late-Qing dynasty and early Republican China who has featured in more than 100 movies since 1949.

Chow's confidence in the production is palpable. Even before the film's release, the 36-year-old director is willing to disclose that the script for a sequel is ready.

"The ending of Rise of the Legend is also a beginning," he says, before revealing that he's going to work on a different project before returning to the Wong Fei-hung series.

Early reviews of Chow's most expensive film to date have been positive - so much so, that it's easy to forget about a time when it seemed unlikely that his career would survive his notorious first film, Murderer.

For the unsuspecting audience attending the first press screening of Murderer in July 2009, it was tempting to believe that they were witnessing the fledgling filmmaker's career implode on the big screen.