Forum - View topicColumn - Mucha Wuxia
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Snomaster1
 SubscriberPosts: 2943 |
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Thanks a lot,Mr. Toole,for throwing in that "Great Space Coaster" reference.
 I haven't seen that show since I was a kid.
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6592 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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It was the other way around. "Hypermarionation" was pinched from Gerry and Silvia Anderson, who coined the termed "Supermarionation" in the 60s. Link. Or, maybe you were inferring that when you say dusted off? Last edited by Errinundra on Sun Aug 07, 2016 3:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2351 |
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I've read a little of this. It reminds me more of Cookie Clicker with a Chinese fantasy skin than anything. |
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7jaws7
 Posts: 705 Location: New York State |
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I hate to be that guy, but IMO calling Thunderbolt Fantasy an anime is an insult to Thunderbolt Fantasy. It's the best series of the year so far for a reason: it's standing out from the rest of the crowd.
I don't think Urobuchi considers it anime, either. |
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Levitz9
 Posts: 1022 Location: Puerto Rico |
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Imagawa also made Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still; I haven't seen muh Wuxia outside of G-Gundam (lol) but Giant Robo seems much along the same vein. Kid has to master his father's giant robot, there's a strong sense of justice (via the Experts of Justice)... It might be that Imagawa went more for wuxia imagery in Giant Robo than actual tone, though.
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Stuart Smith
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For whatever reason, stopmotion, claymation, and puppetry are lumped in with animation despite having more in common with live action, so it makes sene a Japanese wuxia would be classified as anime in that regard.
-Stuart Smith |
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Patamon829
Posts: 1 |
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Imagawa used a lot of characters from Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Water Margin manga, which is an adaptation of Suikoden/108 warriors novel from China, so there's already a lot of chinese imagery inherent in the character designs in Giant Robo |
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Big Kahuna
Posts: 56 |
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Great article Mike, enough that I need to add in a couple of cents
We in America have actually been experiencing the wuxia genre for a long time, not just since Crouching Tiger, but probably when Arthur Waley first translated (albeit heavily abridged) Journey to the West in the 40s, And of course there was that huge flood of kung fu films in the late 70s. (While kung-fu films/novels, a.k.a. mo-kung, or wu-gung in mandarin, generally does not include swordsmen and fantasy elements, wuxia can also be non-fantasy with no swordsmen. The distinction is there, but the terms can be interchangeable in daily conversations.) I want to concur with MIke that "Zu" (skip the terrible sequel please) was a pretty big deal back in the early 80s, because it brought back all the old school (read, b&w) "fantasy wuxia" films from the 50s and 60s. By the 70s no one was doing fantasy wuxia much, and the rise Bruce Lee virtually put a nail in that coffin (for about 10 years). Zu changed everything. Even Shaw Brothers got back in with some of the best Gu Lung novel adaptation starring Ti Lung directed by the great Chu Yuan (think Mario Bava on steroids). What's best it branched out into less serious folksy stories, with a bit of sex, a bit of comedy, a bit of unadulterated violence, and a bit of horror (remember the beautiful female ghost story and kangsi (mandarin: jiang-si) hopping vampire craze?). Yeah, if it weren't for Zu... nah, they would have eventually revived with or without Zu.... just like anywhere else, what's old is new is old is new is old. So when the fantasy wuxia began to fade by the early 90s, out of nowhere came a pari of non-fantasy wuxia "Swordsman" and "Swordsman II" movies, adapted from Louis Cha's "Laughing Swordsman" novel (lit, Laughing Proudly in Jiang-hu). The first movie was co-directed by Tsui Hark and the venerated King Hu, who's probably the best known Chinese director in the 60s and 70s, and created the basic look of all wuxia films to date. While King Hu in actuality barely directed half of "Swordsman" movie (dude was old by then, and Tsui Hark's a pushy guy), it did lead to "Swordsman II". The sequel did not have King Hu, nor the original lead Sam Hui who was replaced by the rising Jet Li, the movie did jack up the non-fantasy kung-fu abilities to 20 on a dial that maxed out at 10, and best of all, it cast Bridget Lin as "Invincible Asia". She alone owns the role, the movie, the whole universe. She forever changed what can and what cannot be adapated from a wuxia novel. These two movies shook the Chinese communities oversea as I recalled. Anyway after Swordsman suddenly there were tons of Louis Cha adaptations (his novels are generally considered difficult to adapt since they are so historical, expansive, and hella political... unlike Gu Long's stuff, which are more mystery/detective pulp with martial arts for accent... check out the many wonderful Shaw Brothers adaptation starring Ti Lung and directed by the great Chu Yuan in the studio's twilight years). While they have worked his novels to death the last 20 years, Louis Cha's works still exert influence (i.e., the secret martial manuals in the hands of the beggar at the end of "Kung Fu Hustle" are all the most powerful techniques in his novels.... and the soundtracks all came from old 50s and 60s b&w wuxia movies) Them were good years. But then, the PRC took over Hong Kong. And most wuxia / kung fu films today are just, well, sucks. Just as the wuxia genre has been around for a long time as Mike alluded to, (not unlike manga, some of the genre's prototypes going back the Warring States period at least 300 or 400 B.C), politics has found its way into wuxia novels, poetry, calligraphy, painting, Beijing operas, music, puppet shows, even roadside / teahouse story tellers (not unlike kamishibai artists, etc. Art, afterall, is the stirring cauldron of the people's collective mind But wuxia novels has one very distinct pedigree from its contemporary western literary tradition: fighting women. In wuxia, fighting women are very distinct from strong ladies like Electra or Athena or Shakespearean heroines from the West, in that these fictional women not only fight and kill, but they often didn't start off strong (like a godless), but became strong by virtue of her own will and practice of the martial arts (or magic arts). You see characters like that in Journey to the West, The Water Margin, and other literature both high brow and low brow. And some actually existed, like Gung-Sun Dai-neng, whose swordsmanship was praised in a poem by Tang Dynasty's best poet Li Po. Now that is not to say the Chinese old or modern are any more enlightened than the West: heck no, i.e. China has only one great Empress, Empress Wu (but boy was she crazy awesome), versus there are tons in Europe and the Americas. And even today Chinese women don't have that much political power even though many are the real drivers of the Chinese economic revolution. However, the inclusion of wuxia women fighters, not to mention the concept of jiang-hu (or wu-lin, lit. the martial forest) basically a nation-wide, co-existing underworld untouchable to the government, the genre is fertile ground for subversive writing. Historically wuxia has always been flipping the finger at rotting traditions such as foot-binding or Confucian caste assignment, but it is most comfortable it can satirize if not indirectly criticize those in power. While I have long grown tired of martial arts novels (like superheroes, they all feel the same to me: boring), I've always kept an eye out as the wuxia genre has always been an important tool for the voiceless when direct criticism means big trouble. But today the PRC is killing it. Before 1999, political or not, Hong Kong wuxia films are at least independent. I can hear the the individual spirit of the director, the voice of the writers, even the feel of the actors through their movements (it is a kung fu flick after all). But now I can only hear one thing out of the new films both Hong Kong and China: nationalistic propagangda (I had to vomit watching Yip Man 2). Instead of suppressing the genre, the PRC has subverted it to its own purpose. That's why it is so refreshing to see Thunderbolt: they are using Taiwanese tongue in the poems, and that says volumes. And the three sword parts, could they be symbolizing the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (or oversea Chinese Community.... ok, I'm grasping straws here), and the PRC's insistence on unification. I don't know if Gen is conscious of it ...I'm sure he is. The subject must have come up as he's working with his people in Taiwan. Taiwan films are not as crowd pleasing (and usually lower budget) as Hong Kong films, and therefore do not get as large a following, but I sure hope projects like this get out to the Chinese communities and oversea more. It's a breath of fresh air from the kind of nationalistic stuff coming out of the PRC. Then again, I'm sure they have a mandarin version for the mainland Chinese. Money is money... sigh. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5159 |
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↑
Goddamn, but that's an impressive post! |
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Big Kahuna
Posts: 56 |
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I want to correct that it wasn't in "King Fu Hustle" that Louis Cha novels most powerful martial arts techniques were referenced, but it was in "Shaolin Soccer" with the old beggar (who he himself had been in tons of kung fu flicks). At least 2 came from Condor Heroes novels.
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開明獸
 Posts: 13 |
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Anime (at least the fighting part) have long had considerable Wuxia influence, the earliest mangas in Japan in the 60s-70s almost never had any serious fighting element like we're use to today via Naruto etc. the first to really hit the big times with that sort of fighting element was probably [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fist_of_the_North_Star"]Hokuto no Ken(Fist of the North Star)[/url] which started in only 1983. and that had distinctively direct reference to Wuxia / Kong Fu movies (specifically, if Bruce Lee was still alive then he probably should have sued them for copy rights
 )
Bruce Lee had a huge impact on Japan's anime / gaming theme. XianXia (which is a term China uses a lot now, aka it's the type where the realm goes considerably beyond reality. aka if there's magic / monsters involved along with martial arts.) is something that can go back to the Journey to the West. but the big explosion probably came in the 50s-70s era of Hong Kong's novel theme. where traditional fantastical stories begin to merge with Wuxia. 
(This series, also form Taiwan, is probably the most famous XianXia game series in modern times. granted I hate it's recent few installments.) Anyway, I disagree that 1997 ruined Wuxia, that's just lazy analysis. for one thing there is a clear story fatigue, there just isn't a lot of new things to be done, a lot of the stories were by the same authors who are now either dead or 80+ years old. And a lot of the common theme even by Bruce Lee are basically still being done today ( There's a huge dose of the same stuff in Ip man . ) Wuxia has reached a limit that's difficult to past, where actors who are martial artist are both not in huge supply and you know.. aren't actually good at the acting part. Where as new generation young actor / actress are you know... not martial artist. The stories written in the past are also directed at adults, where as the new generation attempt at Wuxia anime is targeting kids. this transition is more difficult than you'd think The last 20 years due to China's own economic improvements have seen much bigger productions being done now with budgets that can rival hollywood films (for those who actually seen the older Wuxia films... it was definitely not a high budget production. even the Bruce Lee stuffs.) But the problem with Wuxia films of that ilk is that it doesn't really scale well with bigger budget. Even the Hollywood financed Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon by most common sense standard is a terribly silly story , with most of the actors not knowing the most basic things about martial arts and half of them aren't even good actors. But I digress. As for Thunderbolt Fantasy. the presentation isn't significantly different from Pili (or a few of it's rival companies here, though in reality virtually every company that do this in Taiwan are actually from the exact same family, ), though obviously the higher budget and shorter episodes does a lot to improve the quality . (Pili basically throws out close to 3 hours of episode every week. it's closest rival JingGuan also do 1 hour.) We should note that BudiaXi here in Taiwan is distinctively adult oriented, that's a major difference with TBF. The target audience are primarily 20-50 year olds, and even the kids that follow them are usually at least middle schoolers . That might be why the author's friends may have found it boring in the past. I've seen Pili for basically 20 years now, I seen it evolve from basically the traditional art with a little bit of uber crude CGs back in the day to something that now hardly resembles it's original form in just this short span. it's quite remarkable. though Pili's itself I really can't stand much anymore, the series gone too long and has really lost control in a lot of ways, the characters are too shallow, the stories are non sense and pace is just terrible now, most importantly is that it's now basically like Dragonball Z, where every character is Goku so all the fights are just huge CG fire storms that has little to no element of Wuxia actually left. (not always, but it's common enough to turn me off.) here's a few scenes (and OPs) from Pili and it's closest rival JingGuang (Basically the owner of the company are all brothers, the older brothers founded Pili with their dad, but then had a fall out and the dad went to start JingGuang with his younger kids. the money is still mostly at Pili though.) [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC6tohJ17hQ[/youtube] [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW1YmaVNFXs[/youtube] (Pili) [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwNB2Ig37HI[/youtube] [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSSp63AOATg[/youtube] (JingGuang) |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14896 |
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Ah, Lazy Town.......... the closest thing to a live-action anime in America, complete with a pink loli 
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Big Kahuna
Posts: 56 |
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Kaiming:
Good posts. Thanks. You are correct that the influence of Bruce Lee on not just Asian pop culture, but as the zeitgeist of his time, cannot be overstated. I do however want to point out that when it comes to cinematic influence, it's a two way street. While you can see the effect of Bruce Lee on Hokuto no Ken or Jackie Chan on Dragonball, two benchmark shonen action series, samurai films had an unmistakable role in the development of the new wave wuxia movies since the 50s. The works of Kurosawa and other jidai films had a tremendous impact on filmmakers all around the world: George Lucas (Star Wars), Walter Hill (Last Man Standing), John Sturges (Magnificent Seven), Sam Peckinpah (too many to mention), John Boorman (Hell in the Pacific, among others), John Frankenheimer (Ronin, Manchurian Candidate), Robert Aldrich (Dirty Dozen), Don Siegel (Hell is for Heroes), even the French New Wave (Melville's Le Samourai), and of course Sergio Leone, who single-handedly launched the spaghetti western genre. So as these guys worshipped at the feet of Kurosawa, the same was true for Hong Kong and Taiwan wuxia film makers. Just as the West had no problem remaking (stealing) The Magnificent Seven, Fistful of Dollars, and Last Man Standing, Chinese filmmakers (and other cultures I'm sure) too were having regular smorgasbord with both samurai and Japanese gangster films. So great was the influence of jidai films and Kurosawa that I would go on to say that without it, King Hu's distinct visual motif for all wuxia movies to come would have looked very different; without Zatoichi, the One Armed Swordsman might have come in both arms; and without Sugata Sanjiro, the action in all the old B&W Wong Fei Hung movies (about 90 of them) might be a lot less athletic, stepping aside for fantasy wuxia which had been the main stay of martial arts movies since the 1920s instead of pushing the envelope. Indeed, it is easier to do fantasy wuxia as all it needs are camera tricks and special effects (i.e. power beams and rays usually drawn directly onto the celluloids), requiring far less actual martial skills and athletic prowess from the stars themselves. This last point is especially important since it is these Wong Fei Hung movies that had the greatest effect on the young Bruce Lee. So much so that he went on to invite Shek Kin, who always plays the villain in every B&W Wong Fei Hung movie (think Republic serials), to be the main villain Khan in Enter the Dragon. The world is indeed a small place, as it just goes around and around. While it's totally cool to influence (lift if you like) by other filmmakers, genre, or culture, I have big problems when that influence comes in the form of censorship from a self-serving totalitarian opaque government who's more interested in protecting their own and the powerful. That's why I found so many of these wuxia, or xianxia, or kung fu films coming out of the PRC and Hong Kong so hard to stomach. It's not like old school kung fu films didn't have its xenophobic moments, i.e. Japanese characters always being villains in 70s movies, but with good reason given memory of the war and atrocities were still within the memory of the living. However, 40 years later, they are still doing it, only this time I found it incredulous as majority of these guys/ladies weren't even born during WW2. Mostly, I can't sense the heart of the filmmakers in these new films as I used to. In the past, even a bad film was enjoyable (i.e. crazy Cat III exploitation movies like The Untold Story or Daughter of Darkness or The Ebola Syndrome.... they were totally gross, completely camp, unapologetic bad taste, but they were also genuine and 100% fun). Now all I feel are cowards trying to please / placate the PRC government censors. It's always Chinese the good guys foreigners the bad guy. Rah rah rah go China. Well, nationalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Afterthought: Kurosawa himself studied Hollywood directors like no tomorrow, and many of his works are based on western novels both new and old, including King Lear and Macbeth (for course). Just saying. That's enough for me. Just want to vent a little about crappy PRC movies. Sorry for being so long winded. |
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Desa
 Posts: 285 |
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My first real interest in wuxia started with Coiling Dragon (Panlong). I read the complete novel series in about a week (bless you WuxiaWorld and especially Ren, the translator all other translators should aspire to be).
I am also reading I Shall Seal the Heavens (ISSTH) mentioned in the article, among many other novels. I don't know if Mike knows of the name "Deathblade" but I only know ISSTH through his (and sometimes Mrs. Deathblade's) translation. Bless them both. Now about Thunderbolt Fantasy, When I heard it was a wuxia fantasy, I was like "I'm totally in!". It features puppets? "Well why not?!" Then I watched it and was like... "NOPE!" Honestly the animation is, I'm sad to say, distracting. I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy Thunderbolt Fantasy much more if I was reading it as a novel rather than watching it, because watching it for some reason gives me zero immersion (and this is coming from a guy who thinks that the CG elements of Garo: The Animation are fantastic). |
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xyz
Posts: 243 |
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I love wuxia and I appreciate the puppets craft but I can't puppets for too long. It drives me nuts.
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