Academy of Evil: If the story leans heavily toward martial arts, expect one or more of these to exist in the setting.For the 2011 movie titled Wu Xia, see Swordsmen. ![]() The closest American equivalent is The Western, especially regarding its hazy boundary with Weird West. In Japan, however, the term bukyo has since faded into obscurity). (Interestingly, the term wuxia was originally a calque of the Japanese bukyo. The Japanese equivalent is Jidaigeki, particularly the chanbara subgenre. This genre places more emphasis on Supernatural Martial Arts, and specifically on the practitioners becoming progressively stronger over time.Ĭompare Sword and Sorcery, High Fantasy, Heroic Fantasy, and Swashbuckler. In recent years, another genre known as xiānxiá (仙俠, "Immortal Hero") has developed, referred to on this wiki as the Spirit Cultivation Genre. Tolkien and High Fantasy, Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Liang Yusheng proliferated the modern wuxia genre. Modern works often incorporate outside themes and ideas, allowing the genre to develop, and in turn wǔxiá themes and visual styles have strongly influenced Western media, especially in cinema. Wulin is basically a majestic way of saying "the World of Warriors". ![]() In modern Chinese, perhaps as a result of these connotations of a separate world with its own rules, the term jianghu has taken on other meanings, including the underworld or criminal gangs.Ī more romantic term known as wǔlín (武林,literally "Martial Forest") is used when one wants to talk specifically about the world of martial artists and warriors, divorced from the ugly connotations of criminality that jianghu has come to embody. It is implicit that law and government are unjust, ineffective and/or corrupt, requiring the xia to settle differences by force moderated only by their chivalrous code, and often forcing them to live as outlaws despite their noble characters. The best wuxia writers draw a vivid picture of the intricate relationships of honour, loyalty, love and hate between individuals and between communities in this milieu. The jianghu is a "shared universe", populated by martial-artists and monks, wandering knights and beautiful princesses, thieves and beggars, priests and healers, merchants and craftsmen. note According to The Legend of the Condor Heroes English translator Anna Holmwood, the jianghu was named "for the symbolic landscape of rivers and lakes that is home". Notable for melodrama, spectacular swordplay, and high-flying martial arts where the laws of physics, like gravity, are more suggestions than solid rules.Īlthough some wuxia stories are set in modern times, or even the future, most take place in the "Martial Arts World" of jiānghú (江湖, literally "rivers and lakes") a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Imperial China. One of the oldest genres in Chinese literature, wǔxiá (武俠/武侠, literally "martial-arts chivalry" or "martial arts heroes", and pronounced roughly woo-sheah in Mandarin) stories are tall tales of honorable warriors (俠/侠 xiá) fighting against evil, whether it be an individual villain, or a corrupt government. ![]() Jackson, "The Art of Action: Martial Arts in the Movies"
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