Post by yenchin on Dec 26, 2014 6:09:32 GMT
This book is Xu Haofeng's anthology of Wuxia short novels. It collects three of his recent works, "Master" (Shifu, 師父), "National Warrior" (Guo Shih, 國士), "Hiding Behind the Blade" (Dao Bei Cang Shen, 刀背藏身), as well as some of his early works, "Traces of the Wokou" (Wokou De Zong Ji, 倭寇的蹤跡), "Liu Bai Yuan, Republican Assassin" (Ming Guo Ci Ke Liu Bai Yuan, 民國刺客柳白猿) and "Supplementary Chronicle of Liu Bai Yuan" (Liu Bai Yuan Bie Zhuan, 柳白猿別傳). The early works have been more or less adapted into two of Xu's films The Sword Identity, and Arrow Arbitration.
Master: This story is about a WingChun master from Canton who wants to establish his school and fame in the northern city of Tienjin. Since WingChun isn't a big school, his plan is to train a disciple, get him to challenge the other schools, and after a chain of winning, the other schools will complain to him. The master will claim that he's unable to restrain his disciple and disavow him. A BaGua master from Tienjin, who's secretly the WingChun master's friend, will come out and defeat the disciple. Thus saving the face of the Tienjin schools as well as acknowledging WingChun's effectiveness. However, the plan falls apart as the BaGua master is defeated (in a cheat move) by his disciple, a military official, who plans to bring in the military influence on the martial schools in Tienjin. The official follows up his plan by killing the disciple and admitting the WingChun school in Tienjin, thus totally taking over the Tienjin schools. The WingChun master avenges his loss by assassinating the official.
National Warrior: The First National Exam on martial arts is held and fighters compete for the top three places as "National Warrior" (Guo Shih, 國士), "Heroic Warrior" (Xia Shih, 俠士), and "Warrior" (Wu Shih, 武士) A retired military official, Hao Yuan Qing, wins his way through the tournament solely by his reflex training and bayonet skills. The officials of the exam are ashamed that a non martial artist might win the title of National Warrior, and settle with the top three all with the title "Warrior". This results in dissatisfaction of Hao and he goes to a martial art school to challenge the headmaster, who was the head judge of the National Exam and a TaiChi master. The headmaster refuses in various ways. Hao, determined on the title, convinces the other two of the top three Warriors to meet him and challenges them both, eventually defeating them. Finally winning the title of "National Warrior" and forcing the headmaster to agree the challenge. The headmaster fakes a stroke with some medicine so he can narrow down the fight into a competition of internal force and wins. Hao vows to learn TaiChi and defeat the headmaster's disciple in 3 years. One of the defeated top 3, Liang Shao Xi, due to his wife's extramarital affair with Hao and defeat, comes to learn with the headmaster who is now really disabled due to the medicine he used. After the civil war the Second National Exam is held five years later. Liang is invited as a guest and expects that Hao and his ex-wife (whom he still misses) might attend. However the rules of the exam have changed, and the winners won't be awarded Warrior titles, so Hao won't come. The story ends with Liang defeating Hao in a dream and discovering Hao's "Warrior" medallion he left at the beginning of the story.
Hiding Behind the Blade: This story is kind of complex, what I can say is that the Wuxia element is kind of light, involving the “Eight Ways of Blade Breaking”, which was used by the Chinese DaDao Dui (Large Sabre Unit) in WWII to fight the Japanese. It’s more about suppressed feelings between a young man and a girl he saved, fake feelings between a lady and a man faking as her husband.
Traces of the Wokou: Basically this is the original work of the movie The Sword Identity. Where the key topic is about the roots of the Japanese sword being connected to the Chinese staff, and a bladesman using the innovated Japanese sword is fighting all over the place. In the movie the main character is trying to establish his school, however in the novel he is trying to make a point to the government. The ending is much more tragic as almost every main character in the movie dies.
Liu Bai Yuan, Republican Assassin
Supplementary Chronicle of Liu Bai Yuan
Both of these stories involves a character named “Liu Bai Yuan”. However, they’re different people from a lineage of assassins using the code name “Bai Yuan” (White Ape, 白猿). The backstory is that there was an old professional assassin group where all the members use “Bai Yuan” as their first name. Therefore a member with the surname of Liu calls himself “Liu Bai Yuan”. The group hid in the mountains in Manchuria for a long time, occasionally assassinating important officials throughout history and existence only known to few. They composed a book on assassination, with the first half on justifying the assassination of national leaders. The book was immediately banned. The Jurchens sought out their help in unifying Manchuria, and after the Qing Dynasty was established the emperor, knowing how dangerous they were, sent troops to their lair to destroy them, to the extent that they set fire on the mountain where the lair was located. While the mission seemed successful as the troops found 123 bodies and no one fled, the early Qing emperors all died mysterious, violent deaths, and KangXi also suffered from numerous attempts on his life, hinting that maybe someone survived. However, after YungZheng’s death, the later attempts on the succeeding emperors showed a drop in skill, which might indicate that the last of the Bai Yuans have finally died out.
In Liu Bai Yuan, Republican Assassin the story is setted in the early Republican era of China when warlords were still high in power. It starts with the death of Yuan ShihKai (who attempted to end the Republican era and be Emperor of China), presumed to have died of illness. In fact, he was assassinated by a miniature arrow shot. The assassin was hunted down and shot in the chaos, and the Bai Yuan assassination book was found in his possessions. The Premier, another warlord, fearing his own life, ordered his most loyal guard to study the book in 10 days. 10 days later the guard disappeared. It is not until 15 years later the guard returned to the Premier and related his experiences on how he trained himself and worked as a Xia, assassinating evil characters all over the place, and following the principles mentioned in the book. However, after a failed attempt, he hid at a factory, befriended and kind of developed hidden feelings on a woman, which influenced his actions in the later part of the story where the woman wants to avenge her father’s death, and the guard wants to act before her to protect her life from the law. The woman in this story is Shi Jianqiao: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Jianqiao
In Supplementary Chronicle of Liu Bai Yuan the story is about a boy who met Liu BaiYuan and inherited his skills and name. The timeframe seems to be inconsistent with the other story so likely this is an independent work. This story focuses on the assassination of Yang XingFo, an early human rights activist of China.
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After reading and watching Xu HaoFeng's various works I'd like to say that he really adds some interesting taste into the Wuxia Genre with his descriptions of character intentions, fast duels, and so on. However, the main thing I'd like to complain is that most of his characters are so suppressed on themselves and end up either dying with regrets or have not so satisfying conclusions. It's like his view of Wulin is full of backstabbing, death duels, and tragedy. His movies are a bit lighter, (only considering The Sword Identity and The Grandmasters). Recently his TV series on escort agencies ("鏢門") is out, haven't got to watch it yet.
Master: This story is about a WingChun master from Canton who wants to establish his school and fame in the northern city of Tienjin. Since WingChun isn't a big school, his plan is to train a disciple, get him to challenge the other schools, and after a chain of winning, the other schools will complain to him. The master will claim that he's unable to restrain his disciple and disavow him. A BaGua master from Tienjin, who's secretly the WingChun master's friend, will come out and defeat the disciple. Thus saving the face of the Tienjin schools as well as acknowledging WingChun's effectiveness. However, the plan falls apart as the BaGua master is defeated (in a cheat move) by his disciple, a military official, who plans to bring in the military influence on the martial schools in Tienjin. The official follows up his plan by killing the disciple and admitting the WingChun school in Tienjin, thus totally taking over the Tienjin schools. The WingChun master avenges his loss by assassinating the official.
National Warrior: The First National Exam on martial arts is held and fighters compete for the top three places as "National Warrior" (Guo Shih, 國士), "Heroic Warrior" (Xia Shih, 俠士), and "Warrior" (Wu Shih, 武士) A retired military official, Hao Yuan Qing, wins his way through the tournament solely by his reflex training and bayonet skills. The officials of the exam are ashamed that a non martial artist might win the title of National Warrior, and settle with the top three all with the title "Warrior". This results in dissatisfaction of Hao and he goes to a martial art school to challenge the headmaster, who was the head judge of the National Exam and a TaiChi master. The headmaster refuses in various ways. Hao, determined on the title, convinces the other two of the top three Warriors to meet him and challenges them both, eventually defeating them. Finally winning the title of "National Warrior" and forcing the headmaster to agree the challenge. The headmaster fakes a stroke with some medicine so he can narrow down the fight into a competition of internal force and wins. Hao vows to learn TaiChi and defeat the headmaster's disciple in 3 years. One of the defeated top 3, Liang Shao Xi, due to his wife's extramarital affair with Hao and defeat, comes to learn with the headmaster who is now really disabled due to the medicine he used. After the civil war the Second National Exam is held five years later. Liang is invited as a guest and expects that Hao and his ex-wife (whom he still misses) might attend. However the rules of the exam have changed, and the winners won't be awarded Warrior titles, so Hao won't come. The story ends with Liang defeating Hao in a dream and discovering Hao's "Warrior" medallion he left at the beginning of the story.
Hiding Behind the Blade: This story is kind of complex, what I can say is that the Wuxia element is kind of light, involving the “Eight Ways of Blade Breaking”, which was used by the Chinese DaDao Dui (Large Sabre Unit) in WWII to fight the Japanese. It’s more about suppressed feelings between a young man and a girl he saved, fake feelings between a lady and a man faking as her husband.
Traces of the Wokou: Basically this is the original work of the movie The Sword Identity. Where the key topic is about the roots of the Japanese sword being connected to the Chinese staff, and a bladesman using the innovated Japanese sword is fighting all over the place. In the movie the main character is trying to establish his school, however in the novel he is trying to make a point to the government. The ending is much more tragic as almost every main character in the movie dies.
Liu Bai Yuan, Republican Assassin
Supplementary Chronicle of Liu Bai Yuan
Both of these stories involves a character named “Liu Bai Yuan”. However, they’re different people from a lineage of assassins using the code name “Bai Yuan” (White Ape, 白猿). The backstory is that there was an old professional assassin group where all the members use “Bai Yuan” as their first name. Therefore a member with the surname of Liu calls himself “Liu Bai Yuan”. The group hid in the mountains in Manchuria for a long time, occasionally assassinating important officials throughout history and existence only known to few. They composed a book on assassination, with the first half on justifying the assassination of national leaders. The book was immediately banned. The Jurchens sought out their help in unifying Manchuria, and after the Qing Dynasty was established the emperor, knowing how dangerous they were, sent troops to their lair to destroy them, to the extent that they set fire on the mountain where the lair was located. While the mission seemed successful as the troops found 123 bodies and no one fled, the early Qing emperors all died mysterious, violent deaths, and KangXi also suffered from numerous attempts on his life, hinting that maybe someone survived. However, after YungZheng’s death, the later attempts on the succeeding emperors showed a drop in skill, which might indicate that the last of the Bai Yuans have finally died out.
In Liu Bai Yuan, Republican Assassin the story is setted in the early Republican era of China when warlords were still high in power. It starts with the death of Yuan ShihKai (who attempted to end the Republican era and be Emperor of China), presumed to have died of illness. In fact, he was assassinated by a miniature arrow shot. The assassin was hunted down and shot in the chaos, and the Bai Yuan assassination book was found in his possessions. The Premier, another warlord, fearing his own life, ordered his most loyal guard to study the book in 10 days. 10 days later the guard disappeared. It is not until 15 years later the guard returned to the Premier and related his experiences on how he trained himself and worked as a Xia, assassinating evil characters all over the place, and following the principles mentioned in the book. However, after a failed attempt, he hid at a factory, befriended and kind of developed hidden feelings on a woman, which influenced his actions in the later part of the story where the woman wants to avenge her father’s death, and the guard wants to act before her to protect her life from the law. The woman in this story is Shi Jianqiao: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Jianqiao
In Supplementary Chronicle of Liu Bai Yuan the story is about a boy who met Liu BaiYuan and inherited his skills and name. The timeframe seems to be inconsistent with the other story so likely this is an independent work. This story focuses on the assassination of Yang XingFo, an early human rights activist of China.
-------------
After reading and watching Xu HaoFeng's various works I'd like to say that he really adds some interesting taste into the Wuxia Genre with his descriptions of character intentions, fast duels, and so on. However, the main thing I'd like to complain is that most of his characters are so suppressed on themselves and end up either dying with regrets or have not so satisfying conclusions. It's like his view of Wulin is full of backstabbing, death duels, and tragedy. His movies are a bit lighter, (only considering The Sword Identity and The Grandmasters). Recently his TV series on escort agencies ("鏢門") is out, haven't got to watch it yet.