Jin Yong aka Louis Cha

[GeneChing]

The cover of a 1961 paperback edition of the third book in Cha's "Condors" trilogy.Photograph by Mr Dick Tsz-fung Chan. Courtesy Dr. Clarence Kin-yan Yau

In 1981, Cha’s prominence in Hong Kong earned him an invitation to Beijing, to meet Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s pragmatist successor. Deng treated Cha’s family to a private dinner and professed himself an avid fan. Cha returned the compliment, telling reporters that Deng had a noble bearing, “like a heroic character in one of my books; I admire his fenggu,” the wind in his bones. Then, as the 1997 termination of Britain’s colonial lease of Hong Kong approached, Cha was appointed to a prestigious political committee charged with implementing Beijing’s vague promises of political “autonomy,” the price extracted by London in exchange for a peaceful handover. Hong Kong, a city full of refugees from the regime, watched nervously as Cha staked out conservative positions on democratic representation. Supporters of his anti-Communist editorializing felt betrayed, finding his new positions too accommodating to Beijing; others wondered if his desire to participate in the politics of his fatherland, and his newfound coziness with the Communist Party, had an ulterior, authorial motive: to be read. Deng, by lifting the Communist Party’s censorship ban on “decadent” and “feudal” wuxia novels, uncorked a reading craze. The timing was good: after Mao’s vandalisms, many Chinese sought to xungen, or return to their roots. Cha’s novels offered narrative pleasures steeped in the splendors of China’s past.

For decades, Cha brushed aside claims that his fiction allegorized modern politics. For many readers, this stretched credulity: as Ming Pao was documenting the horrors of the Mao period in its news and opinion pieces, Cha’s daily wuxia installments featured an androgynous kung-fu master whose followers worship with cultish devotion. Another novel’s antagonist was a sinister sect leader who, with his shrill and domineering wife, seeks to establish supremacy over the jianghu. The parallels to Chairman Mao and his wife, Jiang Qing, and their Red Guard followers, were not hard to see. Yet, Cha has always been coy about whether his books were meant to yingshe, or “shoot from the shadows,” to indirectly critique current politics through a narrative of the past.

Four years ago, I met Cha at the Shangri-La Hotel, which sits at the foot of the rain-forested mountain that dominates Hong Kong Island, for an interview about his literary legacy. Cha has been frail since suffering a stroke, in 1997; he is unable to walk or write, and speaks with difficulty, relying on a retinue: his third wife, his secretary, his publisher, a nurse, a personal assistant, and a rotating cast of protégés. The meeting, one aide told me, would likely be the last interview of Cha’s life. We had lunch in a private dining room, and he sat facing the door, the feng shui seat of honor. His voice, thick with home-town dialect, was weak and hoary, but he managed a few answers in a mix of Mandarin, Shanghainese, and Cantonese. (His English and French have left him.) I asked him about the political meaning of his work, and he made a surprising acknowledgment. “Master Hong of the Mystic Dragon Sect?” he said, referencing the antagonist of his final novel, “The Deer and the Cauldron.” “Yes, yes—that means the Communist Party.” Cha acknowledged that several of his later novels were, indeed, allegories for events of the Cultural Revolution.

“Condors,” written in the late fifties, captures the trauma of the Communist takeover, through the ancestral memory of the nomad invasions from the north. Its characters face the same challenges as Cha’s generation: deciding whether to join the new northern regime or flee to the south as a patriotic refugee, and the anguish of losing the rivers and mountains of one’s ancestral land. Though it’s a work of kung-fu fiction, the book evokes the central Chinese metaphor of writing history: the mirror, an edifice of the past that we gaze at, seeking glimmers of the present.

Nick Frisch is an Asian-studies doctoral student at Yale’s graduate school and a resident fellow at Yale Law School.

I'm really eager to read the new translation of Condor Heroes. Maybe as soon as I finish the galley for Bruce Lee: A Life by Matt Polly...and as soon as I get a review copy

[GeneChing]

Cannes: Why a Famed Chinese Novelist Is Sparking Marvel-Like Dreams for China
11:00 PM PDT 5/8/2018 by Karen Chu


Illustration by Alexander Wells

After a long absence, movie adaptations of the epic works of Jin Yong, which feature hundreds of characters with individualized skills — sound familiar? — will soon storm the Chinese multiplex.

The name Jin Yong is as synonymous with Hong Kong’s rich tradition of wuxia cinema as Stan Lee is with the American superhero movie.

The renowned period novelist (real name: Louis Cha Leung-yung) is said to be the world’s most widely read 20th century Chinese writer, and the countless film and television adaptations of his 15 books indelibly altered the shape of Chinese popular culture.

“A friend of mine once said to me, ‘I feel lucky to be born Chinese, because it means I can read the wuxia novels of Jin Yong,’” Taiwanese screen goddess Brigitte Lin, who immortalized the character of Asia the Invincible in the classic martial arts films Swordsman II and its sequel, tells THR. “Jin Yong’s work is an indispensable part of the Hong Kong film industry — all of the adaptations of his work have been bound for success.”

Often likened to greater China’s answer to Game of Thrones or J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Jin’s sagas are set in various periods of Chinese history, ranging from 6th century B.C. to the 1700s, and covering the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. His famously intricate narratives bring to life the ancient worlds of jianghu and wulin martial arts and feature mythic heroes seemingly ready-made for the big screen — superhuman martial arts masters driven by honor, integrity and discipline.

Yet despite their deep and enduring influence in Chinese pop culture, there hasn’t been a big-screen adaptation of one of his books in nearly 20 years. But now a Jin film renaissance appears to be on the horizon, with a succession of adaptations expected to storm the Chinese multiplex over the next decade.

“Since the 1950s, Jin’s martial arts novels have provided a bottomless well of inspiration for filmmakers,” says Fion Lin, assistant curator for the Performing Arts at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, where a permanent Jin Yong Gallery exhibits artifacts that document his writing process as well as the TV series, films and video games based on his work.

“The legendary characters he created, especially, were so popular with readers that they moved swiftly and easily from printed media to silver screen,” Lin adds, noting that more than 40 financially successful Hong Kong films were made from Jin’s stories.

Most of the books — published in the 1950s and through the ’70s in Hong Kong and Taiwan (but not until later in China, due to the media censorship of the Cultural Revolution) — are stand-alones, but the Condor series (The Legend of the Condor Heroes, Return of the Condor Heroes and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, which took place almost a hundred years after the Condor books) forms a trilogy featuring a set of beloved recurring characters.


Courtesy of Hong Kong Commercial Daily
The first Condor Heroes book was published in 1957.

Hong Kong’s legendary Shaw Brothers Studio, which specialized in martial arts releases throughout the ’70s, was particularly keen on the Jin bibliography, churning out one adaptation after another, including Legend of the Fox (1980), The Proud Youth (1978), Ode to Gallantry (1982) and The Brave Archer trilogy (1977-83), based on the Condor books.

The popularity of Jin’s work continued into the 1990s as films adapted from — or even simply inspired by — his stories regularly stormed the box office. Some of them were produced by Jin superfan Tsui Hark, including The Swordsman trilogy based on The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, co-starring Lin and Jet Li, which collectively earned more than $7.7 million — a sizable sum for the small Hong Kong theatrical market at the time.

Others helped launch, or cement, the careers of some of Hong Kong and Chinese cinema’s most iconic stars, such as Stephen Chow (1992’s Royal Tramp I and II, which together brought in $10 million), Leon Lai (1993’s The Sword of Many Lovers) and Gong Li (1994’s The Dragon Chronicles — The Maidens). In addition, art house star Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time and the comedic companion piece that he produced, The Eagle Shooting Heroes, were each inspired by Legend of Condor Heroes.

On television, JIn’s work was just as sought after. For a stretch in the ’80s, Hong Kong’s dominant station, TVB, did one series based on a Jin novel every year. That included the ever-popular Condor Heroes trilogy, The Deer and the Cauldron (which starred a young Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, both fresh out of the station’s acting training course) and The Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain.

The novels were turned into television series in mainland China all through the 2000s, in addition, Jin's stories have also been adapted for video games, such as the massively popular multiplayer game Heroes of Jin Yong, which combines all of his major characters, spawned a dozen sequels and has remained one of the Chinese-speaking world’s top gaming franchises for two decades.

Producer-actress Josie Ho, daughter of Hong Kong casino magnate and billionaire Stanley Ho, is investing in a potential series of adaptations through her 852 Films banner. “Jin Yong’s novels are like Marvel Comics in the U.S.,” Ho says, noting how the writer's hundreds of heroes with individualized skills and personas, all nestled into a deep historical context, matches the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of breadth and originality.

Ho’s first Jin project — the title of which has not yet been disclosed — will mark 852's first foray into the mainland Chinese film market (her company has co-produced the London-set How to Talk to Girls at Parties; Hong Kong director Pang Ho-cheung’s Dream Home, in which Ho starred; and Revenge: A Love Story, featuring singer-actor-director Juno Mak). 852 has partnered with China’s The One Media Group, which bought the mainland film adaptation rights to Jin’s major works for an undisclosed sum in September.

Also under The One Media banner, Tsui is set to direct a new trilogy based on The Return of the Condor Heroes, with longtime creative partner Nansun Shi producing. Tsui has said his hit Swordsman films were a warm-up for him to adapt Return of the Condor Heroes, which was the first wuxia novel he ever read.

“It ignited my passion for the wuxia genre and my fascination with the wuxia world,” the legendary director said at a September news conference announcing the One Media projects. “The film rights, production technology and market potential weren’t available for me to direct this film adaptation back then, so I’ve been waiting all this time to do it.”

The considerable popularity of Jin's novels in mainland China — where his books were embraced passionately after the country opened its doors in the 1980s (late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was among his fans) — combined with the fact that there have been no recent movie adaptations, could mean enormous box-office potential for the property in the current marketplace.

Apart from Tsui’s trilogy and Ho’s franchise ambitions, director Gordon Chan (Painted Skin) is slated to helm an adaptation of Legend of the Condor Heroes (the precursor to Return) for Hong Kong powerhouse Media Asia. Meanwhile, Sun Entertainment Culture is adapting The Book and the Sword, Jin’s 1955 debut novel, to be written by James Yuen (The Warlords) and directed by Jacob Cheung (Cageman).

“Jin Yong’s novels have proved so popular with readers around the globe, and there is a well-known saying: ‘Wherever there are Chinese, you will find Jin Yong’s novels,’” notes Lin, the curator of the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. “His characters and the martial arts world have crossed geographical borders and become something akin to a lingua franca of the Chinese diaspora.”

Because of their rich characterizations and structural similarity to the Marvel universe, Ho says she believes that Jin’s sagas might also deliver China’s first major crossover blockbuster to the international marketplace.

London-based publishing house MacLehose Press is hurrying to set the stage. The company has secured the rights to produce the first authorized English translation of The Legend of the Condor Heroes, the first installment of which was released in January to coincide with Chinese New Year.

With 11 more volumes to be released in the Condor Heroes saga alone, the Western world has plenty of catching up to do before one of the globe's great fantasy series makes its big-screen return.

THREADS

Condor Heroes
Jin Yong
Cannes

[GeneChing]

No single writer has had as much impact on how we view Kung Fu today as Louis Cha.

Renowned Kung Fu Novelist Louis Cha Dead at 94
The Chinese-speaking world bids a bittersweet farewell to one of its most beloved contemporary writers.

Qian Zhecheng
Oct 30, 2018 3-min read

One of China’s most beloved writers has died at the age of 94, but his tales of swashbuckling heroes and enchanting heroines will live on for generations to come.

Louis Cha — also known by his pen name, Jin Yong — died at a hospital in Hong Kong on Tuesday after battling an undisclosed illness. Sixth Tone’s sister publication The Paper confirmed the novelist’s death with Ma Ka-fai, another Hong Kong writer. “The world has lost Master Jin,” state-owned People’s Daily wrote Tuesday night in an elegiac editorial to the giant of kung fu storytelling.

Cha was born in 1924 in the eastern Chinese city of Haining to a distinguished family with a lineage dating back to high-ranking officials of the Qing Dynasty. He held several literary jobs as a young adult, donning the hats of journalist, translator, and editor. Cha moved to Hong Kong in 1948 to accept a post with Ta Kung Pao, one of Hong Kong’s most successful left-wing newspapers, and published a martial arts novel, “The Book and the Sword,” under the pen name Jin Yong in 1955. He co-founded his own newspaper, Ming Pao, in 1959, and went on to write several popular and critically acclaimed novels, many of which have been adapted to film and television.

Cha has had a profound influence on China’s younger generations. Wang Xiaolei, a well-known WeMedia blogger, weaves Cha’s characters and plots into incisive social commentaries, and billionaire Jack Ma counts himself among Cha’s biggest fans. Ma’s company, e-commerce giant Alibaba, has encouraged his employees to adopt the names of fictional characters for internal communications. Ma’s own pseudonym was inspired by Cha: He chose Feng Qingyang, a kung fu master from the novel “The Smiling, Proud Wanderer.” In 2016, Ma recorded a video in celebration of the writer’s birthday in which he called Feng Qingyang his teacher and said Jin Yong novels should be required reading for all.

Huang Qiping, a 31-year-old history teacher in Foshan, a city in southern Guangdong province, told Sixth Tone that he’s been fascinated by Cha’s writing ever since he first leafed through the pages of “The Legend of the Condor Heroes” in middle school. Almost two decades years later, Huang says he has read the novel cover to cover at least 10 times; he even teaches the book to his students.

To Huang, what sets Cha’s writing apart is its depth and nuance. He remembers eagerly devouring every tale set in Cha’s martial arts universe, where heroes and villains walk on thin air, deliver death with the touch of a finger, and use fabled techniques like the 18 palms to subdue dragons.

Gradually, Huang began to see that there was more to his beloved novels than fame and fighting. Take “Inclusiveness shall make thee a man,” Huang’s favorite line from “The Legend of the Condor Heroes,” his favorite novel. “Just like in martial arts, only people who are truly open-minded can reach the apex of their lives,” Huang explained. “Adopting this mentality has had an immeasurable impact on my life.”

Additional reporting: Fan Liya; editor: David Paulk.

(Header image: Louis Cha poses for a photo at his home in Hong Kong, Aug. 12, 2004. Cui Jun/Beijing Youth Daily/VCG)

THREADS:
RIP Louis Cha
Jin Yong aka Louis Cha

[GeneChing]

This sounds trippy. I know the book but has anyone here played the game?

3D Holographic Projection Kungfu Show in Shaolin with Chinese Wuxia Mobile Game Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils
NEWS PROVIDED BY
Tencent
Jan 25, 2019, 11:00 ET

SHENZHEN, China, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, the mobile game of martial art from Tencent, joined hands with Shaolin Wushu Training Center, presenting a Kungfu projection show full of Chinese wuxia charm through 3D holographic projection, and interacting with martial monks on the morning of December 21, 2018, in the Shaolin Martial Art Hall in Songshan, Henan.



The black, white and gold backgrounds brought the audience into an ink painting on the scene and overwhelmed them with Chinese culture. Every movement of three martial art performers was accompanied with the special high-tech light effects, subverting the past forms of kungfu performances in our mind, and taking the audience to Jin Yong's martial art world.

Songshan Shaolin is known as the birthplace of martial arts. Kungfu has been passed down here for thousands of years and evolved into excellent traditional Chinese culture. This unique creative kungfu performance is based on Shaolin culture and integrates the IP content of the mobile game Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. It combines modern light technology with martial arts performances to create new cultural experiences of "Interpreting Zen with Martial Arts".

Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils is an MMORPG wuxia (martial heroes) mobile game from Tencent. The name is authorized by Jin Yong's novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. Based on this original work, the game hopes to restore the joy of the sword and poetry in the player's heart. In the martial world constructed by Mr. Jin Yong, the Shaolin school has been standing out for thousands of years. To satisfy the expectations of players and martial arts fans, Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils created Shaolin school in the game.

"The world of martial arts without Shaolin school is incomplete. In order to make more people feel the charm of Shaolin martial art, the mobile game Demi-Gods and Semi-Devil worked with Songshan Shaolin Wushu Training Center to make people feel the Shaolin in their mind in a more scientific and technological way, " said the planner of the game Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils.

Nowadays, Tencent is trying to express China's traditional culture in a way more imaginative and artistic, especially when facing the younger generation growing up in the Internet age. The expression should conform to the time so that traditional culture can be accepted and spread by these young people. The kungfu performance show combined the mobile game with martial arts in a more scientific and technological way, which helps the young generation to understand traditional martial arts culture, and to fall in love with it.

In an interview, the person in charge of the Shaolin Wushu Training Center said, "With Tencent, we have attracted young people to know our traditional culture, and made our culture more recognized by the younger generation in modern times, using forms and expressions more conformed to the time."

Through the high-tech and creative presentation with digital IP connecting traditional martial arts, the ancient culture of martial arts was revitalized. The integration of digital IP with traditional culture brings more cultural connotations to the digital industry, realizing the mutual empowerment of digital and culture.

SOURCE Tencent

THREADS
Shaolin Temple Wushuguan 少林寺武术馆
Jin Yong

[GeneChing]

FEBRUARY 11, 2019 1:21AM PT
Berlin: Pang Ho-Cheung to Direct Louis Cha’s ‘Deer and Cauldron’ Mega Franchise
By PATRICK FRATER
Asia Bureau Chief


CREDIT: COURTESY OF MAKING FILMS

“The Deer and the Cauldron,” one of the best-known martial arts novel series, is to be reborn as a major feature film franchise. Hong Kong’s Pang Ho-cheung (“Love in a Puff,” “Isabella”) is to produce and direct.

Pang plans to shoot three movies, back to back, each with a budget of $80 million. Production begins in mid-2019, with a 2021 theatrical date for the first film.

Production will be through Pang’s own Making Film. International sales and finance are being organized through mainland Chinese-backed Hong Kong entertainment conglomerate Bravos Pictures. Bravos is introducing the franchise at the European Film market. The male lead in the novels, Wei Xiaobao, is a charming and mischievous hero rather than a wu xia martial arts champion; an actor for that role has not yet been announced.

Set in the Qing Dynasty era, and ranging widely in a fashion comparable to “Harry Potter” or the “Game of Thrones” series, the books were written some 70 years ago by Louis Cha (aka Jin Rong), the father of the wu xia chivalric martial arts literary genre, who died last year. Cha’s novels have been previously adapted by Stephen Chow and others, and were shot as a Hong Kong TV series more than 20 years ago.

Pang is one of the most talented and most idiosyncratic directors to have emerged from Hong Kong in recent years, with first-rate conventional skills, but often working in a cutting-edge indie fashion. He was also one of the first Hong Kong filmmakers in the modern era to set up his own outfit in Beijing. “The Deer and the Cauldron” will be his first period production.

THREADS
The Deer and the Cauldron
Jin Yong aka Louis Cha

[GeneChing]

Great article. This is what we should've been doing back in the day when Kung Fu Tai Chi used to run feature articles on Chinese recipes (not my idea - I put an end to that after so many complaints ).

The legend of a beggar's chicken
Li Anlan
11:09 UTC+8, 2019-07-14

In “The Legend of the Condor Heroes,” the fate of the protagonist was changed by a titillating chicken.

When Huang Rong stole a chicken and baked it in clay to provide some good nutrition to Guo Jing, the delicious aroma attracted Hong Qigong, chief of the Beggars’ Sect and the “Northern Beggar” of the Five Greats.

The chicken was so tempting that in order to eat the chicken, Hong agreed to teach Guo martial arts, and Huang agreed to prepare fine cuisine for him every day in return.

Hong taught Guo “Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms,” the most powerful of all external martial arts in the novel.

This chicken scene from “The Legend of the Condor Heroes” by Louis Cha, the late Chinese martial arts writer widely known by his pen name Jin Yong, is one of the most memorable writings about food in Chinese wuxia literature, a genre of martial arts and chivalry fiction that centers on the adventures of kung fu heroes.


Xu Jingjing / SHINE

Huang Rong makes begger’s chicken for Hong Qigong in “The Legend of the Condor Heroes.”

Beggar’s chicken is a traditional dish from Hangzhou which wraps a stuffed chicken in clay and bakes it on low heat so the meat of the chicken can absorb all the rich flavors of the spices and fall apart easily.

If conditions permit, the dish is perfect for camping as no pan or pot is required — simply dig a hole, make a fire and bury the clay wrapped chick-en inside to cook.

Beggar’s chicken is a fun dish in Chinese culinary culture, and there are different stories of how the dish was created.

One legend has it that after a beggar stole a chicken from a farm, he had no pots to cook it, so he came up with the idea of wrapping the chicken in lotus leaves and used clay to seal it. He set it in a hole and lit a fire, burying the chicken so it would cook.

When the beggar dug up the chicken and smashed open the clay, he was surprised to find an extra tender, juicy and aromatic chicken, cooked to perfection with little effort.

Another legend associated with beggar’s chicken was when Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) traveled to Jiangnan (south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River) as a commoner. He was lost in the wild, and a beggar gave him a cooked chicken which he considered a delicacy. The hungry emperor found the chicken delicious and asked the beggar for the name of the dish.

The beggar was embarrassed to say a beggar’s chicken, so he called it the wealthy’s chicken. This is why it’s called wealthy’s chicken in some places.


Li Anlan / SHINE

Beggar's chicken is a classic Hangzhou dish.

In modern cooking, the simple, rustic dish has evolved to feature delicious fillings of mushroom and finer seasoning with spices and herbs.

Beggar’s chicken is preferably cooked with sanhuangji, the free-range yellow chicken known for tender and juicy meat.

One original tale about the recipe said to wrap the chicken, still with its feathers on, directly in clay, and when the clay is baked dry, the feather would be removed along with the clay to reveal the cooked chicken meat. For sanitation and easy application concerns, beggar’s chicken mostly uses lotus leaf, which is large enough for bigger birds, to wrap the plucked, rinsed and seasoned chicken before sealing it with clay. That way, the chicken is not only cleaner without touching the clay, but also takes in the fresh fragrance of the lotus leaf.

When making the dish at home, the smaller Cornish hen is the more convenient option. The chicken can be wrapped inside a lotus leaf and sealed with dough, a less messy substitute for clay that’s easily prepared with ingredients already in the pantry.

In the fall, sweet and starchy chest-nuts can be stuffed inside the chicken, which will be cooked in the delicious chicken jus.

Beggar’s chicken is often cracked open with a small hammer when it’s being served.

Cooking foods that are wrapped in fresh leaves is a traditional Chinese technique that aims to seal in all the delicious juices and flavor of the meats and vegetables.

Lotus leaves, being refreshing and large in size, can be used as a wrap-per to make more delicacies such as chicken and glutinous rice in lotus leaf, a Cantonese dim sum dish that stir-fries glutinous rice, shiitake mushrooms and marinated chicken and then stuffs the mixture in fresh lotus leaves and is then steamed until it’s fully cooked.

The leaf allows the chicken and glutinous rice, both ingredients that require extensive cooking to achieve the desired texture, to cook won-derfully with every bit of the juice preserved inside the leaf pocket.


HelloRF

Chicken and glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf

The dish was said to be born at the night markets in Guangzhou when vendors used to make steamed chick-en and glutinous rice with bowls, but opted for lotus leaves as they were easier to carry and sell. Apart from shiitake mushrooms, the classic lotus leaf chicken and glutinous rice also adds dried scallops and salted duck egg yolks for that extra umami flavor.

Zongzi, the traditional Chinese snack made to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, is another iconic dish cooked by wrapping ingredients in fresh leaves.

There are different leaves to choose from when making zongzi, the more common varieties are reed leaves and ruoye (indocalamus leaf).

Wrapping glutinous rice with sweet or savory fillings in fresh leaves is a way to add extra flavor and make the snack easier to store.

In Yunnan cuisine, banana leaves are used to make special baked and grilled dishes.

The technique known as baoshao uses the large, thick and firm fresh banana leaves as the cooking utensil. After cutting the leaves in desired shapes and sizes, the banana leaves are blanched briefly in boiling water to further improve elasticity so they won’t break apart when wrapping the foods.

All kinds of ingredients, ranging from fresh fish marinated in ginger, garlic, chili, mint and cilantro, pig’s brain seasoned in heavy flavored sauce, to tofu and mushrooms, can be folded and wrapped inside the ba-nana leaves. The leaves can seal in the moisture of the ingredients and maintain the heat after the dish is served.

The pockets of food are then fixed with wooden sticks and grilled over an open fire. The cooking time varies depending on the type of ingredients — vegetables cook faster than meats and whole fish, and when it’s time to open the banana leaves, you are greeted by the rich aromas of spices and fresh ingredients.

The legend of a beggar's chickenHelloRF
In Yunnan cuisine, the banana leaves are used to make special baked and grilled dishes.

Source: SHINE Editor: Fu Rong

THREADS
Chinese food
Jin Yong aka Louis Cha

[GeneChing]

PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY NOW!



A Hero Born
On Sale 9/17/19

Epic.
CNN

Welcome to the world of Jin Young. Once you've entered you may never want to leave. The arrival of the U.S. edition is a major event.
JEFF CHANG, author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop



Fantasy and wonder.
Love and passion.
Brotherhood, betrayal,
and bloodshed.

THREADS
Jin Yong
Condor Heroes

[GeneChing]

ASHK Members’ Guided Tour: Jin Yong Gallery – Exhibition of the World-Famous Martial Arts Novelist


Image courtesy: Hong Kong Heritage Museum

2:00pm Registration
2:15pm Start of tour
3:00pm End of Program

Step into the fantastic world of martial arts created by the famous literary giant Dr. Louis Cha – better known under the penname Jin Yong. Creating 15 extremely popular Chinese martial arts novels, Jin Yong is the most influential Chinese martial arts novelist in the 20th century, with readers all across the globe. Jin Yong’s novels have inspired producers of movies, TV series, radio dramas, stage dramas, video games and various cultural and creative products, deeply influencing the development of popular culture of Hong Kong over the past decades, and even becoming a type of common language for Chinese readers around the world.

Join us on a guided tour of the Jin Yong Gallery in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum for a chance to see more than 300 exhibits featuring the early career of Jin Yong, the creative process behind his martial arts novels and the impact the novels had on Hong Kong’s popular culture. Together with handwritten manuscripts and various published forms of his work, the Jin Yong Gallery gives you an opportunity to delve into the inspiration embedded in his novels.

Event Details
Thu 07 Nov 2019
2 - 3 p.m.
Meeting Point: Hong Kong Heritage Museum, 1 Man Lam Road, Sha Tin, Hong Kong
Getting there: Approximately 5-minute walk from MTR Che Kung Temple Station (Exit A)
Free for Members; HK$100 for Guest of Members

This looks so cool.

[GeneChing]

Lifestyle /
Entertainment
How wuxia movies drew on martial arts novels by Louis Cha, Gu Long and Liang Yusheng
Film directors such as Stephen Chow, Wong Kar-wai, and Tsui Hark mined plots and characters from novelists’ tales of romance, chivalry and combat
While filmmakers also drew on actual events and historical characters, martial arts novelists were integral to the success of wuxia movies
Richard James Havis
Published: 7:15am, 20 Dec, 2020


Louis Cha, whose popular martial arts novels were devoured by Chinese people across the world, pictured in 1994. Martial arts films often drew their characters and plots from the martial arts novels of writers such as Cha. Photo: SCMP.
Martial arts movies did not just spring out of nowhere – they have an intrinsic connection to Chinese culture. The films exist as part of the martial arts subculture, or jiang hu, and often draw on the characters and storylines of well-known martial arts novels or feature real or mythical heroes from the past.
Wuxia movies as a whole draw on the immense body of martial arts novels produced in Greater China, while kung fu films may be based on histories, folk stories, myths, and stories – usually from southern China – that have been shared among the martial arts fraternity.
The most famous novelists of the wuxia genre are from the New Wave, a movement that began to modernise martial arts writing in the 1950s. Hong Kong’s Louis Cha Leung-yung (who wrote under the name of Jin Yong), Taiwan’s Gu Long, and Chen Wentong (writing as Liang Yusheng) are the primary exponents of the New Wave, and their works formed the basis of films by Chang Cheh, Tsui Hark, Wong Kar-wai, and Chor Yuen, as well as earlier works of Cantonese-language martial arts cinema.
Martial arts novels tend to be long and episodic, and feature many different characters and intricate, wide-ranging plots and storylines in the manner of the Chinese classic The Water Margin. So filmmakers usually just pick one storyline and one set of characters from a novel and construct a film around these, excising most of the book in the process. (Such novels receive more extensive adaptations as television series.)
Sometimes a book can be so well-known in Hong Kong – such as a work by Cha – that filmmakers assume that viewers already know the story, and consequently skimp on providing any background. This can lead to problems when the film plays in the West, where viewers will probably not have read the original book.
The “wandering knights” of the wuxia novels and films draw on character types developed in ancient Chinese chivalric literature. The earliest is thought to be On the Sword (Shuo Jian Piang), written in the Warring States era (403-221BC).

Andy Lau (left) and Tony Leung Chiu-wai in a still from TV series The Duke of Mount Deer, based on The Deer and the Cauldron, a novel by the late Louis Cha. Photo: Nora Tam
As writer Liu Damu has pointed out in his extensive essay From Chivalric Literature to Martial Arts Film: “Swordsmen in this book are described as having ‘bristling hair on their temples, dangling hats tightly tied with plain streamers, and gowns that are shorter at the back. Anger shows in their eyes, and they dislike conversation.’ This fearsome image is consonant with that of the martial arts hero in modern wuxia novels and films.”
Other early literary sources include The Biographies of the Wandering Knights-Errant and The Biographies of the Assassins (90BC), romances from the Tang dynasty (618-917AD), and detective stories from the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).
There was a surge in the popularity of martial arts novels in China’s Republican era, and some included the fantastique (fantasy) elements beloved of directors like Tsui Hark, such as heroes that were half beast and half man.
Martial art novels written by Louis Cha on display at Greenfield Book Store in Mong Kok, Hong Kong. Photo: Sam Tsang
It was the rebellious nature of the knights errant and their relentless pursuit of justice that mainly appealed to readers in Republican times, qualities that surfaced in the New Wave martial arts film of late 1960s Hong Kong. Readers could “readily identify themselves with those who opt out of society and rely on their own strength to confront a society whose workings escape them”, Olivia Mok writes in her introduction to Cha’s novel Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain.
Cha, Hong Kong’s most famous novelist, is the writer best known for movie adaptations of his work. Cha wrote 15 wuxia works, which stretched to 46 volumes.
Films based on Cha’s work include Chang Cheh’s Brave Archer series, Wong Kar-wai’s Ashes of Time, and Jeff Lau’s Eagle Shooting Heroes (all based on The Legend of the Condor Shooting Heroes); Tsui Hark’s Swordsman trilogy (very loosely based on The Proud Smiling Wanderer); and Stephen Chow and Wong Jing’s Royal Tramp films (based on The Deer and the Cauldron).
Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia (front) is among the all-star cast of Wong Kar-wai's martial arts film Ashes of Time (1994), based on Louis Cha’s novel The Legend of the Condor Shooting Heroes. Photo: Newport Entertainment
“In his analysis of Louis Cha’s work, the critic Lin Yiliang has observed that Cha’s imagery and literary style contain the equivalents to cinematic devices such as long, medium and close shots, and sound effects in their articulation of character and action,” writes Liu Damu.
“Although Louis Cha’s work lends itself easily to cinematic adaptation, the novels are nevertheless filled with detail and develop along non-narrative lines … for this reason, the films adapted from Louis Cha’s work are often based on episodes from the novel, rather than complete stories,” writes Liu.
(From left to right) Patrick Tse, Louis Cha, Nam Hung, and Leung So-kam on the set of The Story of the Great Heroes, a 1960 film based on a Cha novel. Photo: Courtesy Dr Louis Cha/Hong Kong Heritage Museum
Taiwanese novelist Gu Long became a major writing force in the late 1960s, and 19 of his works were adapted for Shaw Brothers by Chor Yuen, including Killer Clans and The Sentimental Swordsman. Gu introduced to the literature the idea of the lone martial arts hero who operates without worldly ties – something which he saw as a reflection of his own existence.
“I want to be alone,” the novelist once said. “It is only in solitude that I can discover myself. It is only then that I can escape from the contagion of other people.” He was known for intricate plots that often made use of themes of detection.
“Gu Long was a keen observer of human nature,” director Chor Yuen wrote. “His descriptions of fighting scenes may not be as vivid as Louis Cha’s, but his characters, despite being sparsely sketched, came alive when interacting with each other. Gu Long novels were literary romances, the difference being that the characters were skilled in martial arts.”

Martial arts novelist Chen Wentong, who used the pen name Liang Yusheng.
Liang Yusheng, who began his novels with a poem, invented the idea of the martial arts artist who was also a scholar. Chen wrote 29 martial arts novels, including the 15-book The Wanderer and Mount Heaven Chronicles. Adaptations of his work include The Jade Bow (1966), the precursor to the New Wave wuxia films, and Ronny Yu Yan-tai’s vibrant The Bride with White Hair .

I need more evidence before I'll agree that Liang Yusheng invited the martial scholar notion.

[GeneChing]

Jan 13, 2021 2:02am PT
Adaptation of Louis Cha’s ‘Fox Volant’ Now Filming for iQIYI

By Patrick Frater


Stringer - Imaginechina
Chinese streaming giant iQIYI reports that it has started production on “Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain,” a film adapted from the classic novel of the same name by Louis Cha (aka Jin Yong), a renowned Hong Kong novelist who was one of the most read Chinese-language authors of the 20th century.

Cha, who also co-founded the Ming Pao newspaper, and directed two films, is best known for his wuxia (chivalric martial arts) novels that with one exception stretch in time from the 11th to the 18th century. He died in October 2018 and received a celebrity memorial with Alibaba founder Jack Ma in attendance.

An estimated 90 films and TV series have been made as adaptations of Cha’s 15 wuxia novels, though iQIYI says that “Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain” is not one of them. Its “Fox Volant” film is pitched as a fantasy adventure that tells a tale of a talented young swordsman avenging his father’s death as he goes undercover among the gang of Eight Villains.

With Lu Yang (“Brotherhood of Blades”) directing, production got under way at the Hengdian studios on Jan. 3, 2021. The company says the completed film will be delivered this year.

The film’s release strategy was not disclosed. Unlike many other territories, film exhibition in mainland China is operating normally, giving iQIYI the option to give the film a conventional theatrical-first outing, or a straight-to-streaming release. The company is currently expanding its activities as a streamer in Southeast Asia and iQIYI-controlled tentpole films could be used as original content that attracts subscribers, or given localized theatrical releases that act as barkers for the streaming app.

Rao Xiaozhi, director of “A Cool Fish,” is set as the film’s co-producer. Ji Peng (“Saving General Yang,” “The Sorcerer and The White Snake”) serves as the artistic director. Feng Simu (“Tientsin Mystic” and award winning short film “Breathe”) is director of photography.

Previous adaptations of Cha novels have included King Hu’s “The Swordsman” (1990), Wong Jing’s 1992 films “Royal Tramp,” and “Royal Tramp II” Wong Kar-wai’s “Ashes of Time,” and the Jeff Lau-directed “Eagle Shooting Heroes.”

Several role-playing video games have also been based on Cha’s novels, including “Heroes of Jin Yong,” which is a composite involving characters from multiple stories. Although, iQIYI has not elaborated on plans for a RPG, the company is diversifying from its base in streaming into games, VR and other forms of IP.

Other film projects based on Cha properties are in different stages of preparation. These including: Pang Ho Cheung’s ambitious three movie adaptation of “Deer And Cauldron”; “The Book and the Sword,” being written by veteran TV scriptwriter Chan Sap-sam (“My Date With A Vampire”) for mainland production house Er Dong Pictures; and Gordon Chan’s plans to direct a 3D version of “The Legend of the Condor Heroes.”

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[GeneChing]

Chinese movie China Captain slammed as rip-off of Marvel films

China Captain was released on Tencent Video streaming website on May 18.PHOTO: MAOYAN/WEIBO
Lim Ruey Yan
PUBLISHEDMAY 26, 2021, 5:06 PM SGT

SINGAPORE - A Chinese web movie featuring an assortment of characters from Chinese folklore and novels has been slammed for ripping off Marvel's superhero movies.

China Captain - the title of the movie echoes Marvel's Captain America - was released on Tencent Video streaming website on May 18.

The story tells of a group of Chinese heroes who declare war on a bunch of foreign superheroes who have encroached on their turf in China.

The movie, directed by He Yizheng, stars relatively unknown actors such as Zheng Xiaofu, Li Taiyan and Du Qiao.

It features characters such as the Monkey King from the classic novel Journey To The West, eccentric monk Ji Gong and late gongfu star Bruce Lee.

There are also characters from late author Louis Cha's martial arts novels such as Yang Guo, Wei Xiaobao and Dongfang Bubai.

Some characters seem to have superpowers, such as Justice Bao from the Song Dynasty firing laser beams from his crescent-moon shaped birthmark on his forehead; and Guan Yu from the Three Kingdoms period having laser-like eyes.

Some Chinese netizens said it was so bad that they had to stop watching after a while and lambasted the weak story and poor special effects.

Others said there were several similarities to the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, such as the film opening with the flipping of comic book pages and the assembling of the Chinese heroes towards the end.

Despite the bad reviews, the movie has a rating of 7.7 on Tencent Video, which left some wondering if the score was a true reflection.

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[GeneChing]

Tokyo: Donnie Yen on Stepping Behind the Camera for His Martial Arts Passion Project ‘Śakra’
The action hero is producing, directing and starring in the film, an adaptation of the classic Chinese novel 'Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils': "I really think this has been one of the biggest challenges of my career."


BY PATRICK BRZESKI

OCTOBER 24, 2022 3:45PM

Behind the scenes on Donnie Yen's 'Śakra' COURTESY OF WISHART


Donnie Yen is among the exceedingly few actors of his generation to have worked at the highest levels of both Hollywood and the Chinese film industry. These days, though, he says he’s putting all his focus in the singular project of elevating Chinese commercial cinema’s reputation on the world stage.

Yen made his breakthrough way back in 1992 in Tsui Hark’s Wuxia classic Once Upon a Time in China II thanks to a memorable fight scene against the film’s hero, played by Jet Li. Scores of roles in Hong Kong, Chinese and Hollywood cinema have followed, including parts in Zhang Yimou’s Hero, Wilson Yip’s brutal crime flicks SPL: Sha Po Lang and Flash Point, Chinese tentpoles like The Monkey King 3D and Raging Fire, and most memorably as the star of the semi-biographical Ip Man movie series, which tells the story of Bruce Lee’s legendary teacher of Wing Chun. While his Chinese film career continued at a blistering pace, Yen went on to co-star in The Weinstein Company’s martial arts sequel, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016) and Disney tentpoles including Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Mulan (2020).

Presently, Yen is producing, directing and starring in the Chinese tentpole Śakra, an adaptation of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, a classic wuxia novel from 1963 that is considered one of the most influential works of martial arts fiction ever. The film began production this summer, with Yen starring as martial arts master Qiao Feng, one of the central figures of the Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils story universe. The actor envisions Śakra — which he alternately describes as both China’s Shakespeare and Marvel — as a potential franchise starter, with the book’s many sub-plots and compelling characters ripe for further big-screen adaptation. The film is produced by Chinese studio Wishart, with Yen’s longtime collaborator Wong Jing (From Vegas to Macau) also attached as a producer. International sales on Śakra are being handled by Plus Entertainment Limited, with the title already generating interest at both the Tokyo International Film Festival’s TIFFCOM market this week, and the upcoming American Film Market in Los Angeles.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Yen about why Śakra is a personal passion project and how it fits into his vision for the future of the Chinese film industry.

How did your involvement in Śakra come about?

Well, as you know, I’ve been in the industry for many, many years, right? I think for any artist or actor who’s done so many films, whether they were successful or not, it’s really important to keep finding motivation and inspiration. That motivation comes from a feeling — it’s about what kind of film you want to make, and the energy and creativity follows that feeling.

So, when I consider a project, there are three action genres in my book. One is the contemporarily action movie, like my films Raging Fire, Kill Zone or Flash Point. The second type is the kung fu movie, like my Ip Man franchise, where the era is closer to the modern day, but people don’t fly as much (laughs). It requires a more traditional martial arts form — like Ip Man or The Grandmaster, where you see traditional martial arts abilities in a character who is grounded in realism. Like the old Shaw Brothers movies, and so many that Jackie Chan and Jet Li did. And the third type is the Wuxia movie, which is a whole other rich tradition of stylistic heritage. It’s been a long time since I did a Wuxia movie. I did Crouching Tiger 2 and Mulan, but I wouldn’t really consider either of those a true Wuxia movie. Mulan really wasn’t my cup of tea, but I did it for my kids, who grew up watching the original animation. The last film I did, which I would consider truly in the genre, was probably Hero (2002). So it’s been a long time. And I think after I finished the Ip Man series, I didn’t feel that I would be able to continue to find fresh inspiration to make kung fu movies. So that’s why I returned to make more contemporary action movies, and that’s what I did with my late friend Benny Chan on Raging Fire (2021). So then I got this opportunity to make a Wuxia film and I hadn’t done one in a while and I felt it had the chance to really be something special. The older I get, the more I feel that if I commit to a project, it has to at least have the chance of being a really special film — something that can leave a mark and have a legacy. I feel like we achieved that with Ip Man; I’m really proud of those films. And I felt that maybe we could do something big and special in the Wuxia genre with this one.

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[GeneChing]

A behind-the-scenes shot during production of ‘Śakra’ COURTESY OF WISHART

And how did you decide to adapt a Louis Cha story in particular?

Well, if I was going to do a Wuxia movie, it had to be Louis Cha, because he’s the most influential Wuxia writer and Wuxia scholar of modern times. I spent a few months thinking about whether I should take up this challenge, because it’s a really big challenge, since his legacy is so huge in Chinese culture. And I really wanted to break ground if I was going to do it. I knew I would be the producer of the film as well as the director, so I knew I would end up spending a lot of my life creating this world. So it wasn’t an easy or quick decision, but I decided to do it. It’s extremely difficult to adapt Louis Cha’s novels as a feature film, because all of his novels are extremely long, with dozens of characters and backstories and mythic details. All of these things are part of what made his novels into classics. In the last few decades, the few relatively successful examples of adaptations of his work were all TV series, because you have many episodes and hours to develop his characters and stories. To do it in a movie is really difficult, because if you do one of his classic works, which small part of the story are you going to break out and focus on? And how are you going to make it an authentic adaptation while also allowing newcomers into his world — and for them to have any clue what’s going on? It’s really difficult. This project was presented to me by my good friend Wong Jing; he got the financing together. But I told him, let me re-read the novels and think about it. And as I was reading through, after a while I started to get ideas about how I would want to present the story, and then I spent a few months working with a couple of younger writers reframing the whole story so that it could work as a film that could be accessible to everyone.

And how did you think about how you would capture his world visually?

That was the other big piece. Because, you know, Tsui Hark has made a number of classic Wuxia films and he’s created a lot of imagery that we now associate with the genre. Even Wong Kar Wai did some Wuxia films in a very artistic and stylish way. So where do I come along? I have to kind of identify certain things that can feel modern but still keep the history and tradition of the genre. I really wanted the history and the tradition of Chinese literature to be there — not just people flying around spectacularly with no substance — because that’s what’s so cool about Louis Cha’s novels. There’s a tremendous amount of real history and philosophy built into his work. It’s like Chinese Shakespeare, with all of this real culture and history woven into it. That was another really challenging thing, because you need to make sure you get all of these period details right. We all had to do a lot of research. Over the last 20 years, a lot of Wuxia characters on screen have become more and more fantasy and cartoon-ish. I wanted to stay away from that — I wanted to go back to the history and the roots. From the wardrobe to the hair and set design all the way to the action and stunts, I wanted to go back to the roots with some realism. And when it comes to the action, I wanted it to be classic Donnie Yen style, where there’s real martial arts going on — where you can feel the pain, power and substance of the fighting in that universe. The most challenging thing was how I would portray Qiao Feng, the character we are focusing on — because there have been multiple actors who have taken on this character and role over the years, so I needed to find a new and unique point of view on him. At the same time, I had to be very level-headed and really understand what the audience has always loved about Qiao Feng in the text. He’s probably one of Louis Cha’s most beloved characters, so I really had to understand the charm of this character and think deeply about how to capture that and blend my own persona with it. I really think this has been one of the biggest challenges of my career. Like I said, picking up Louis Cha isn’t like just doing another movie for me. It’s like you’re remaking Shakespeare. But I’m quite happy I’ve taken on the challenge, so far.

You’re on a very short list of actors who have had top-level success in the old Hong Kong film business, the new mainland Chinese industry and Hollywood. China and Hollywood have very different production systems and both have their virtues. But since you mentioned how you’re aiming to adapt this Louis Cha story for a universal audience who might not already be familiar with his work, I wondered whether there was anything you gleaned from your time in Hollywood that you’re attempted to utilize on this project.

Well, obviously, I have learned some things from working on big U.S. projects, with corporate Hollywood and various talents. The Hollywood industry is very professionalized, because they’ve been doing it for so long, and the global business has been dominated by Hollywood for a long time, right? So, of course, I’ve learned a lot from working on projects like Rogue One. But at the same time, I really feel that China will be next to dominate the world. In fact, the economy of China is already dominating the world. And as a Chinese filmmaker, I’m a very proud Chinese man. Everybody knows that by now. And I have every right to be proud because our culture is so rich. So I just feel like I have a responsibility to continue. Because I’m quite fortunate to have spent 40 years in this business. It takes a lot of luck, and a lot of support from investors who give me this opportunity to create. So what I want to do is use my experience and dedicate myself to continue making films with Chinese elements, Chinese history and Chinese actors — to do my part to help elevate the whole Chinese film world. Because when I look at Marvel’s commercial success, I feel there’s so much I could do with my own culture that’s equally as good, if not better. You know, Wuxia is Chinese Marvel, except it has a lot more rich history and culture behind it. I mean, it goes back thousands of years. So, anyway, that is my single goal. Besides being creative as an artist, I really feel like I want to use my influence to make really good Chinese movies. That’s all I want to do before I retire.


A production still from Donnie Yen’s forthcoming ‘Śakra’ COURTESY OF WISHART

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[GeneChing]

Exhibition on late Chinese martial arts writer Louis Cha strikes patriotic chord among visitors
Chivalry and honor
By Xie Jun in Shanghai
Published: Nov 01, 2022 09:10 PM


Photo: Xie Jun/Global Times Copies of Louis Cha's Ode to Gallantry Photo: IC
Copies of Louis Cha's Ode to Gallantry Photo: IC


Photo: Xie Jun/Global Times Copies of Louis Cha's Ode to Gallantry Photo: IC
A visitor is dressed up for a photo at the Jin Yong Exhibition in Shanghai on November 1, 2022. Photo: Xie Jun/Global Times

An exhibition about famous Chinese martial arts novelist Louis Cha (pen name Jin Yong) in Shanghai has aroused the collective memories of visitors about the fictional characters and legendary adventures created by the late Hong Kong-based novelist, who is considered one of the most important icons of Chinese popular literature.

His novels are also regarded as a patriotic symbol for many Chinese people, visitors told the Global Times on Tuesday, as the books are a mix of martial arts stories and traditional Chinese culture.

The Jin Yong Exhibition, which opened on Friday at the Shanghai Library, was organized by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Shanghai of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland.

At the opening ceremony of the exhibition, Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee said Cha is the most read writer in the Chinese community, and that his influence on literature, film and television and popular culture has been limitless over the past 60 years, according to a report from Chinese news outlet thepaper.cn.

Lee said he hopes visitors will appreciate Cha's extraordinary life through the exhibition and savor the spirit of patriotism contained in his works, the report noted.

Divided into four sections, the exhibition displays around 300 exhibits related to Cha's life and novels, such as his personal collection of chess pieces, seals, different versions of his novels and stage photos from television series and movies based upon his works.

The exhibition also has installations recreating scenes from the popular author's novels where visitors can dress up like their favorite characters and take photos. There's also a sculpture of the eagle from Cha's novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

Cha wrote 14 martial arts novels in total, many of which were written while he was working for Hong Kong newspapers. The stories, which are often set against the background of Chinese historical events, are loved by Chinese readers all over the world not only for the twists in the storyline, but also for their depictions of traditional Chinese culture.

Besides being a successful novelist, Cha also becomes a famous icon of Hong Kong's popular culture. Many famous cultural products have been produced based on Cha's novels, such as songs written by Hong Kong lyricist and songwriter James Wong for movies adapted from Cha's works.

A visitor at the exhibition surnamed Huang, from China's post-1980 generation, told the Global Times that the patriotism in Cha's novels is what attracted her the most.

"I started to read Cha's novels when I was in junior high school. There were also many TV shows adapted from Cha's novels playing at that time. What impressed me was not only the martial arts scenes, but also the chivalrous spirit of making contributions to the motherland that Cha's books stressed, which I think is very powerful and inspiring," she said.

She also said that Cha's novels often focused on individuals making important life choices, which she feels can broaden the horizons of today's younger generation.

Thomas Yeung, a Hong Kong economist and vice dean of the Futian School of Finance, told the Global Times that Cha's works have always promoted a chivalric spirit and the concept of the Chinese nation.

The thinking of Cha has influenced the spirit of Hongkongers by focusing on commitment, willingness to help others and surviving difficult situations.

Many Hongkongers also have the personalities of major characters depicted in Cha's novels, he said.

This looks really cool. Anyone here near Shanghai that might go?

[GeneChing]

How kung-fu heroes can grow our climate consciousness
‘It’s an intentional alignment with a certain kind of underground resistance.’
Jenny Liou
Image credit: Sally Deng/High Country News
ESSAY Jan. 1, 2024 From the print edition
On the sloping shoulder of Paradise Ridge, just south of Moscow, Idaho, my dad’s spinning kick drives him higher — one arm near his face, the other outstretched, soaring above the sunset-colored springtime boughs of the peach trees that he planted with those same two hands. His feet regain the ground. He’s not even practicing kung-fu in earnest, just egging on the family dog with acrobatic motions before sending a tennis ball flying deep into the pasture. The slope is steep on this little ridge outside the city, and the slightest gain in elevation lifts him above the loess-brown hills visible in the drainages beneath a fringe of wheat and timothy. I call it timothy as if this was still a pasture, though through the decades it has become a sea of bunchgrasses, knapweed, rogue pines and the ever-expanding Chinese vegetable garden that my father has cultivated ever since he and my mother bought the property in the early ’90s.

Over the past year, the conflict between China and Taiwan has escalated yet again, though it has been overshadowed by other violence. I’d debated flying to Taipei with my children, but, talking on the phone with my parents, I mentioned that it might not be too smart to fly straight into the possible threat of a missile attack. “You know, that’s why we bought the property,” my mother said. This was news to me. She then explained how, in the years leading up to the Third Taiwan Strait Missile Crisis in 1996, my dad’s parents and brothers and sisters quietly obtained green cards and contributed whatever money they could spare toward the purchase of our house on the ridge. My parents’ share of the down payment came from the savings bonds that my mother’s family had given them many years before; five fertile acres, privacy and a self-sustaining well were suddenly more enticing than the abstract security of slowly maturing money insured by any government.

That’s why my father’s family visited so often. And then, when the crisis was past, everyone went home. As my mother and I talked, I realized I’d never questioned the surge, then ebb, of my father’s family in our lives, or my early childhood immersion in Chineseness, something that had all but disappeared by the time I started high school. This new understanding of my family’s history on the land as a martial history changed everything.

In the Chinese genre of wuxia, martial artists vie for supremacy, honing their skills and wits in combat against the backdrop of centuries of political turmoil. In what feels to me like a hyperbolization of the genre, xianxia fiction nudges the ideal of the martial arts hero further, into fantasy. In xianxia stories, the martial arts adept pursues not merely fame nor martial arts ascendancy, but those elusive dreams around which fantasies seem to converge: superhuman knowledge, strength, skill and immortality. The heroes of these novels are known as “cultivators.”

This new understanding of my family’s history on the land as a martial history changed everything.

My family writes, we fight, and we grow things, a combination of activities, I know, that must seem, from the outside, to be very disparate endeavors, even if we sensed that they were all driven by the same yearning. When I started reading kung-fu fiction, these three worlds leaned into one — my father and I at the dining table poring over a Tang Dynasty translation; the tricky little wrist locks and grip breaks he taught me so that I would always know how to fight if I needed to get away; my hands, and his hands, and his father’s hands, all growing Chinese vegetables, like stories from the dirt.


Sally Deng/High Country News

THESE DAYS, it’s not just the threat of another missile crisis that prevents my parents from selling off land that has become increasingly difficult for them to maintain as they age. It’s climate change. It’s the vague hope that by growing their own food and coaxing water from the aquifer through their own well and mowing down the grasses that spurt up annually around their house, they can magically slow the sweep of history and the onslaught of catastrophic climate predictions.

With his workout complete, my dad pauses to snip some leeks before walking back into the house to work on dinner. My parents have converted all their landscaping to vegetables, like the leeks he’s serving now. As we eat, we talk about The Legend of the Condor Heroes, Louis Cha’s kung-fu saga, written under the pen name Jin Yong. Where the saga’s original Chinese-reading audience experienced the novels through the lurch and grind of newspaper serialization, the books’ American audience experienced them according to a different pattern — the commercially driven timing of translation. The four translated books of the Legend of the Condor Heroes series were published in rapid succession between 2018 and 2021. That series, set in the Song Dynasty, ends with the aftermath of a decisive battle between the Song army and the Mongol horde.

Smoke is still snaking from the edges of the battlefield, where the grass of the unburnt steppe meets burning bodies. Two martial heroes, Guo Jing and Lotus Huang, stride through the field, surveying the destruction. Guo Jing helped the Mongols win, seeing his alliance with them as the only way to defend the Song Empire against Jin incursions. His own homeland will be the next to fall when the Chinese civil war is overshadowed by the Mongol horde. But The Legends of the Condor Heroes ends before that happens, during a period of contingency and hope. Lotus and Guo Jing have been reunited after an arduous separation. They’ve recovered from nearly mortal wounds and from strained but not quite severed relationships with warring kin. Ghengis Khan has just died, but the Mongol invasions are not over yet.

Cha wrote about the conflict between China’s Jin and Song empires and their eventual subjugation by the Mongol horde in the 1950s, as China careened towards the Cultural Revolution. In a period of intense polarization, his stories are remarkable for their lack of political polemic; siding with neither the Communist or the Nationalist party lines, they seek to help the Chinese people navigate the culture-shattering onslaught of inevitable civil war. Now, in the 21st century, as the world floods and burns, and NASA announces the summer of 2023 as the hottest summer on record, I find myself turning to these stories to guide and console myself as we all await a climate catastrophe, the casualties of which will dwarf the dead of history’s battlefields.

Just now, after a two-year pause, The Past Unearthed, the first book of the next series, Return of the Condor Heroes, was published. I tell my dad that I’m surprised to learn that Guo Jing and Lotus Huang, the heroes of the last four books, are, in The Past Unearthed, cast as villains. Meanwhile, the son of the last series’ traitor, Yang Guo, appears to be the new hero. “Just wait,” he says. “That’s not how it goes for long.” He knows the whole story by heart. “This is only the beginning.”

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