It was 25 years old and the fantasy and epic marching arts genre was celebrated with a short ending wuxia —and grandes rasgos, de wow (martial arts) y xia (riding horseman)—, was something less reserved for fans not only of Oriental cinema, but of its variants that are less known in the West. Although its origins go back to Chinese literature and culture already 2000 years ago and to the first films wuxia they were driven in the decade he lived in the last century, even beyond their borders only we had some echoes.
During the session, the el wuxia was merged and confused with oil and fashion on the one hand kung fu movies and on the other hand with Japanese samurai or chanbara. It’s not extraño, it can be just like other children of your mutual influences. Here, let’s look at the first phenomenon wuxia that came to Spain (and much of the West) was a TV series Blue front (1973-1974).
Based on a book of the XIV century Waterfrontone of the four great novels of Chinese classical literature, was actually a Japanese adaptation of the manga series, but perfected in space wuxianarration the adventures of legendary bandits on the Liang Shan Po Riverled by rebel official Imperial Guard Lin Chung against the abuses of the corrupt governor Kao Chiu, the emperor’s favorite, during the Song Dynasty (10th century).
Aired here in May 1978, on a Sunday night, the first day of RTVE (then broadcast late on Saturday), the next day the Spanish kids were talking about nothing but Lin Chung, Kao Chiu and Liang Shan Po. Of swords, Bandids, and warriors who ran miles in seconds, leaped to mountaintops, and chopped arms and heads like maple poles. There are chrome collections, photo novels, a book… and many chinos restaurants are inspired by the name of Liang Shan Po. It was the first sociological impact wuxia in Spain. Only those who knew.
A history of chinos ghosts
Now I have to wait ten years for it to come back wuxiathanks for the success A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), by Ching Siu-Tung, which triumphed in Sitges and was released in commercial theatres. The new film was heralded in the 1970s and 1970s by Taiwanese director King Hu with his mythical Dragon Lodge (1967), but it would be early in the day, p Zu, Warriors of the Magic Mountain (1983) by Tsui Harka as they set new stylistic parameters for the genre, more fantastical, impressive and exportable.
Films by Tsui Hark, Ching Siu-Tung, Yuen Woo Ping, Ronnie Yu, Daniel Lee, etc. began to travel to film festivals, were edited for video and DVD, has been conquering epic fantasy lovers for years El Señor de los Rings or game of thrones. It was a frivolous phenomenon. Limited to fans of martial arts and cinema more local action, full of spirits, secret societies and supernatural forces, magic and brujería (Taoists, Buddhists and Shamanists). From where swords and Shaolin monks fly, ridding themselves of the grave, in space with their own powers: Wulin or World of Martial Arts.
Un género prohibido en la China comunista durante décadas, solo producido en Taiwan y Hong Kong. Que consumían las clases bajas, los jóvenes y niños, cuya literatura moderna era el equivalente chino a la pulp fiction. Algo para lo que el espectador occidental acostumbrado a Hollywood o al cine asiático serio y de autor difícilmente estaba preparado. Hasta Tigre y dragón.
Wuxia de autor
Ang Lee se había consagrado con su segundo largometraje en Estados Unidos, la comedia indie El banquete de boda (1993), a la que seguirían títulos que le confirmaron como un director-autor de cine comercial con estilo propio pero asequible. Entonces, tras el fracaso de su wéstern Cabalga con el diablo (1999), Lee se volvió a China y Taiwan, para adaptar también en coproducción con Estados Unidos y Hong Kong, una novela wuxia de Wang Dulu, perteneciente a una de sus sagas de los años treinta y cuarenta.
Dulu había destacado por introducir mayores dosis de romanticismo y melodrama entre duelos y lances imposibles, y ahí fue donde Lee vio su oportunidad. De repente, el trágico romanticismo de Tigre y dragón, con las estrellas de Hong Kong Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh y Zhang Ziyi al frente, consiguió que el público occidental comulgara con piedras de molino y se tragara la estética delirante del wuxia, con sus guerreros voladores y espadas mágicas, dejándose llevar por las lágrimas de su operístico —de ópera de Pekín, claro— romance.
As mainland China embraced capitalism and Hong Kong became part of its empire, this is an even more international outcome The tiger and the dragon, Winner of the Academy Award for Best English Language Filmalong with photography, music and art direction, vision wuxia for some filmmakers who have already dreamed of hubiéramos who dream again and again with stories about jumping swords.
Zhang YimouChinese director who conquered the West with aesthetic dramas, social dramas, realists and sentimentalists like Red sorghum (1988), Red interior (1991) or Live! (1995), suddenly launched on a wuxia no less a beautician, but little or no realist with Hero (2002), House of Flying Dags (2004), Curse of the Golden Flower (2006), Large mural (2016) —¡with the Hollywood Detachment!—, Shadow (2018) The Legend of the Red River (2023), some more or less historical figures.
Wong Kar Waian independent director of new Taiwanese cinema for excellence, he plays with his son (whom he has loved since childhood) with Este contraveneneno del Oeste (1994) to further read the most specific biography of the fabulous Ip Man, the martial arts master who taught Bruce Lee: Grandmaster (2013).
Hasta el intimista and minimalist Hou Hsiao-Hsien if he looked at it wuxia with style, clarity, intimacy and minimalist, on the edge of deconstruction, in Murderer (2015). No one imagined that Asian filmmakers “for festivals” would be surprised to be granted a “licencia para matar” or, better said, to fly and jump through the air with swords, magic and epic battles thanks to Tiger and Dragon.
Hey, electricity wuxia This is not a surprising phenomenon. In 2016, Netflix came out Tiger and Dragon 2: Sword of Destinydirected by expert Yuen Woo-Ping, without Mayores alharacas. China, Taiwan and Hong Kong continue to produce films and series wuxiaas Dynasty of Swords (Feng Xioajung, 2024), a great saga with a detective Dee or Credit knife people (Chen Tianxiang, 2024), which is rarely proven or in cases abandoned by platforms. Quiz until a new director of prestige, one “elevated” like Ari Aster, Robert Eggers or even Nolan or Peter Jackson decides to do remake de The tiger and the dragon or run on your own wuxia… Yes, it will be true that Buda acknowledged us.
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