Condor Heroes and Wuxia in General
Just wondering out loud how many fans of Wuxia are on the Sift. If you're not familiar with what it is, Wuxia is a genre of epic Chinese stories usually set hundreds or thousands of years ago featuring lots of honorable heroes and rotten villains usually doing a lot of traveling and martial arts battles in the course of working through whatever path fate has laid in their laps.
They are often based on very old, lengthy stories that are created as once-run television series. They are honestly really addictive and just plain old fascinating.
For me it's difficult to be able to watch many because they aren't usually offered with English subtitles or dubbing, but one that is available in the US on DVD is Return of Condor Heroes (ROCH) written in 1959 by Jinyong who has written several Wuxia novels. Like several other Wuxia novels, ROCH was written and published one "chapter" at a time in a Chinese newspaper. (Readers clamored every week in anticipation for each subsequent installment.) ROCH is the second in a three part series of stories that are all interrelated over multiple generations. The most recent series filming of ROCH (titled simply "Condor Heroes" in the US release) was the eighth production and filmed in 2006. ROCH is an amazing, beautiful story that spans several decades.
The sixth iteration of part one in the series, Legend of Condor Heroes (LOCH) is finally at the end of this month finishing its filming, which started in 2006. (One of the stars was in a near fatal car accident and once he recovered the other star was committed to another show.) It's scheduled to start airing in China later this year, and I'm just counting the seconds until it's released on DVD.
In LOCH the story begins with two blood brothers whose wives just gave birth to sons and are made blood brothers. Immediately afterward, the babies are separated. One of them is taken and raised by an evil Mongolian prince, while the other is raised by a group of "weirdos." A whole lot happens over many years as they both grow up. ROCH starts with the evil brother's baby as a young boy and follows him as he grows up with Dragon Girl. Because of the direct connection from LOCH to ROCH, it's most desireable to see LOCH first, but unfortunately they are obviously creating the latest LOCH series a couple years after ROCH. It's still okay to see ROCH, though.
If you are interested in getting an idea of the story of LOCH the four part movie series called The Brave Archer might be worth a look, but I'd much rather see the full-length TV series as the movies summarize and cut out a ton.
The next DVD set I'm looking forward to in the mean time is the third production of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils from 2003 also written by Jinyong and starring Crystal Liu Yifei who stars as Dragon Girl in ROCH 2006.
Anyone else have any idea what I'm ranting about or am I all alone here?
They are often based on very old, lengthy stories that are created as once-run television series. They are honestly really addictive and just plain old fascinating.
For me it's difficult to be able to watch many because they aren't usually offered with English subtitles or dubbing, but one that is available in the US on DVD is Return of Condor Heroes (ROCH) written in 1959 by Jinyong who has written several Wuxia novels. Like several other Wuxia novels, ROCH was written and published one "chapter" at a time in a Chinese newspaper. (Readers clamored every week in anticipation for each subsequent installment.) ROCH is the second in a three part series of stories that are all interrelated over multiple generations. The most recent series filming of ROCH (titled simply "Condor Heroes" in the US release) was the eighth production and filmed in 2006. ROCH is an amazing, beautiful story that spans several decades.
The sixth iteration of part one in the series, Legend of Condor Heroes (LOCH) is finally at the end of this month finishing its filming, which started in 2006. (One of the stars was in a near fatal car accident and once he recovered the other star was committed to another show.) It's scheduled to start airing in China later this year, and I'm just counting the seconds until it's released on DVD.
In LOCH the story begins with two blood brothers whose wives just gave birth to sons and are made blood brothers. Immediately afterward, the babies are separated. One of them is taken and raised by an evil Mongolian prince, while the other is raised by a group of "weirdos." A whole lot happens over many years as they both grow up. ROCH starts with the evil brother's baby as a young boy and follows him as he grows up with Dragon Girl. Because of the direct connection from LOCH to ROCH, it's most desireable to see LOCH first, but unfortunately they are obviously creating the latest LOCH series a couple years after ROCH. It's still okay to see ROCH, though.
If you are interested in getting an idea of the story of LOCH the four part movie series called The Brave Archer might be worth a look, but I'd much rather see the full-length TV series as the movies summarize and cut out a ton.
The next DVD set I'm looking forward to in the mean time is the third production of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils from 2003 also written by Jinyong and starring Crystal Liu Yifei who stars as Dragon Girl in ROCH 2006.
Anyone else have any idea what I'm ranting about or am I all alone here?
6 Comments
ThylanSounds like something I'd love to know more about.
Farhad2000I remember watching these as a kid when our country just got independent, the one that sticks out most in my memory is "The Monkey King". They still show them here.
lucky760Awesome, Farhad. That's one that Charms knows well and really, really loves. She has always really wanted me to see it, but that series is not offered with English subtitles anywhere. That one is called Journey to the West and was published in the 1590s. (Yes, it's that old!)
Updated the post with a little more info about LOCH and ROCH.
ThylanSo, "The Brave Archer" TV series would be a goos starting point? know of anywhere to get a copy with English subs? Or if not, anything else that would be an ok starting point that has?
lucky760So you're just going to jump right in? That's excellent!
The Brave Archer was actually not a TV series, but a series of films starting in the late 70s. If you really want to get right into it, I'd say first watch The Brave Archer movies (all parts, 1 thru 4) then follow that with the full second series Condor Heroes 2006, which is just superb. Then whenever LOCH 2008 is released on DVD go back and watch that.
Are you familiar with using BitTorrent to download stuff? (You can find 1-3 on MiniNova, which I prefer, and all four parts on The Pirate Bay.) I don't know how to acquire The Brave Archer series other than via download, but you can (and should) purchase the Condor Heroes DVD. It's very well worth it.
Please feel free to let me know if you need any guidance or assistance. Very happy to help.
(Funny note about The Brave Archer: there is never a single bow or arrow used in any of the series.)
ravenI saw some episodes (installments?) from these series several years ago... they play in Ann Arbor on one of the international channels that is part of the expanded cable package I no longer get. They air in Chinese, with English subtitles (sometimes), and are shown during the day like a soap opera.
As I am familiar with some of the historical novels this genre is based on, like Monkey King, and the Warrior Hero tales from the Warring States Period, I thought they were kind of fun, and not too terribly dissimilar from Sam Raimi's Hercules or Xenia Warrior Princess, although lacking in the self deprecating camp humor that popularized those two shows, the LOCH and ROCH episodes were kind of cool in the same way that they took old old old stories, and reinvented them in a serialized fashion for modern audiences. I can see getting addicted to them if I had the time.
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